Last updated 13:49, Friday, 22 August 2008

Actress Patsy Kensit isn’t the only one with a skeleton rattling round in her family cupboard.Two years ago Keswick genealogist Pat Stokes took up researching family trees as a therapy after he had survived cancer and gruelling chemotherapy treatment.

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Looking into the past: Genealogist Pat Stokes, Keswick, who traces family trees for a living

For thousands of people, tracing who they are and where they have come from is a source of fascination bordering on an obsession.

Celebrities like Kensit are even prepared to bare their family’s all in front of millions of television viewers in the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? series.

In her case it was the sensational revelations about her family’s links with some of London’s most notorious gangsters that caused her to call a temporary halt to filming while she came to terms with the information that was being uncovered.

But it’s my own family tree – or at least one side of it – that has prompted me to ask questions, the answers to which may be simple or disturbing depending on which way the story goes.

I always thought it was my father’s family background, a long line of Methodist preachers, which was of greater interest than that of my mother’s side.

How wrong could I be?

It turns out some of my relatives have been delving into the past and uncovered a shock that, if true, sheds a whole new mystery and uncertainty on what I thought was a quite ordinary, if tough, working class life.

It took them much soul searching before they decided to tell me just what had emerged on the family tree they commissioned – the suggestion that I could have a brother I know nothing about.

My elder brother died some years ago, so it comes as a bolt from the blue to learn there may be another brother somewhere out there.

But how and why? I may never discover the truth. If indeed there is a mystery at all.

Is it the long arm of co-incidence that a woman of my mother’s name registered the birth of a boy in a city where my parents used to live, in 1935?

Both my parents are long since departed this life, so there’s no prospect of finding out from either of them.

But there’s a family tree, clinically set out on a sheet of paper, that begs so many questions.

Of course it would not affect my feelings for my mother in any way at all.

But there’s a nagging doubt. I am 75 per cent sure this is not the same person.

But what if it was? Did she have a child and, if so, what terrible or tragic circumstances led to her never disclosing the fact during the rest of her long life?

When people go for regression therapy it’s funny how they almost always end up being Henry VIII, Ann Boleyn or Elizabeth I in an earlier existence.

Family tree research is different. You can’t change your family to make it more appealing.

If there are skeletons in the cupboard, you have got to be prepared to have them let out.

Patsy Kensit never expected to be plunged into such despair that she pulled out of last week’s programme, only to make peace with her past and resume the quest.

“I’m a professional, but I didn’t know how I could get through the next day,” she said. “I genuinely didn’t want to know any more. I didn’t want my sons to know. I just couldn’t hear any more things about my family.”

She knew about her father’s criminal past and his association with the Krays, but didn’t know the full extent of his criminality or that his father had a string of convictions and had been in jail.

He gets many requests from people, many of them whose upbringing was through adoption, to find out their “real” past.

He is currently working on seven case histories.

But Pat uncovered an amazing story about one of his ancestors who had two unconnected families in different parts of the country.

“We discovered it when this lady turned up in the village where my 80-year-old mother lives because she knew that her father had another family somewhere,” he said. “Nobody believed it at first. It had a happy ending and they have been friends ever since.”

Pat said: “I find people I do trees for are often quite pleased to find something a bit different, maybe a bit dubious.

“It’s no reflection on themselves or the family today.

“You don’t choose your family and different standards applied years ago.

“Mothers’ wishes tended not to count for anything and you got hung for stealing sheep.”

Most of Pat Stokes’ clients are middle aged and have lost parents and want to leave something behind for their children and grandchildren that tells the story of their family.

But just occasionally the romantic notion of tracking down who you are can turn into a traumatic experience.

Before you start, be prepared to hear the best – and some of the worst.

I don’t know whether I shall ever find out if I have a missing brother, or whether a collection of co-incidental dates, times and places has created a false trail.

If he was adopted then the name would have changed and he could have moved far away from the city of his birth. He may even be dead by now. Or an entirely unconnected man who shares my name could be oblivious to this whole investigation and be quite shocked to find he is linked with it.

The message? Before you embark on family detective work, be careful what you wish for.

If there is a skeleton in my family cupboard I won’t be losing any sleep over it. But not everyone may be as sanguine about revelations that, when they are in the more recent past, seem more disconcerting.

Who you are may turn out to be very different from who you think you are.