''Meet the Izzards'' is a 2014 two-part

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

documentary in which actor and comedian

Eddie Izzard Edward John Izzard (; born 7 February 1962) is a British stand-up comedian, actor and activist. Her comedic style takes the form of what appears to the audience as rambling whimsical monologues and self-referential pantomime. Izzard's stand- ...

uses genetics to trace Izzard's distant ancestry. The first part, titled "The Mum's Line", uses Izzard's

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...

to trace the maternal line. Izzard thus travels to the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal d ...

in Africa, then on to the Middle East, Turkey, Italy, Denmark and finally, England. Prior to traveling to Denmark, Izzard's mitochondrial haplogroup is identified as T2f1a1. In the second part, titled "The Dad's Line", Izzard's Y-chromosomal DNA lineage is traced. In this episode, Izzard travels to

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

, and again returns to England via Saxony, Germany. This episode reveals that Izzard belongs to the Y haplogroup I-M223.

References

External links

* * 2013 British television series debuts 2013 British television series endings BBC television documentaries about science BBC high definition shows English-language television shows Genetics in the United Kingdom Television series about family history Works about genetics {{UK-tv-prog-stub