A WELL-KNOWN British TV star researching his family tree for the hit BBC programme Who Do You Think You Are found a surprise connection to Bermuda – and to one of the island's early historians.

In the most recent episode of the popular genealogy show, which aired on Monday on BBC One to an audience of millions, political satirist and comedian Rory Bremner discovered a connection to Bermuda through his great-grandfather, the island's deputy surgeon general in Victorian times.

During his years serving as the British Army's Principal Medical Officer to Bermuda, Bremner's great-grandfather managed to marry into one of the island's oldest families – and to write a book chronicling both Bermuda's history and the state of affairs in the late 19th century.

Mr. Bremner is probably best known for his work on the political satire show Bremner, Bird and Fortune, having made his name with a dead-on impression of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Scottish-born comedian spent months working alongside BBC researchers to discover that his great-grandfather, John Ogilvy, made quite a name for himself in Bermuda despite only living here for about five years.

Aberdeen-born Ogilvy had qualified at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in the 1850s, going on to serve as a medical officer in the British Army during the Crimean War. Mr. Bremner was shown a handwritten diary from these times, in which his great-grandfather describes delivering the baby of a soldier's wife in the Crimean snow, armed with only a knife.

Ogilvy went on to serve in India, then accepted the post of deputy surgeon general in Bermuda in 1881. Ogilvy was by this time a widower, and left his three children behind in England.

While in Bermuda, however – to the surprise of both Mr. Bremner and BBC researchers – the doctor married a young woman called Emma Gilbert, a descendent of the original Trimingham family who arrived on the island in the mid-1600s. While in Bermuda, Ogilvy immersed himself in island life and researched its history, eventually completing a book entitled An Account of Bermuda, Past and Present, published in 1883.

During the course of the BBC programme, Mr. Bremner learned that his great-grandfather had at least four children with his new Bermudian wife, who was well over 20 years his junior. He moved back to England with his young family after retiring from the British Army, reuniting with his other children and dying in Surrey in 1899.

Mr. Bremner is not the first celebrity featured on the long-running BBC genealogy programme to discover a connection to Bermuda. Who Do You Think You Are has delved into the family history of acclaimed British TV presenter Moira Stewart, whose Dominican-born mother lived in Bermuda.

The Irish version of the programme recently traced the roots of broadcast journalist Charlie Bird back to the island, resulting in five days of filming here last year. Mr. Bird discovered that his Bermuda-born grandfather Timothy, an electrical engineer, was responsible for bringing electric street lighting to small-town Ireland.