Who Do You Think You Are? review: Mishal Husain uncovers a history of surgeons, scholars and soldiers

Telegraph

29-04-2025

I don't like to make sweeping generalisations, but all Indian parents want their children to be doctors with an Oxbridge or Harvard degree. A lawyer, if the kid is a bit dim. The really rogue ones become dentists. So doctor's daughter Mishal Husain was delighted, in the latest episode of Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC One), when she discovered that her ancestors had excelled in both areas.
Her great-great-grandfather turned out to have been surgeon to a maharajah despite being of mixed race, which meant that his job opportunities were supposed to be limited. The maharajah even took him for an audience with Prince Albert, grandson of Queen Victoria. Going back further, she learnt that a distant forefather had attended Harvard. Records showed that, at one point, Joseph Farley was thrown out of college for staging a protest about the food, but was later allowed to complete his studies. This came as a great relief to Husain, who said: 'I'm an Asian parent, so I'm very worried about a student not getting their degree.' Joseph graduated with honours and won a prize for his dissertation. 'This could be something that my boys try and emulate,' she mused.
Husain had already delved into her family tree to write a book about her grandparents, but information about earlier generations had been harder to come by. The link to a maharajah had been bandied around but dismissed as a tall tale. Husain had assumed that one side of the family had roots in Ireland, because her grandmother was an Anglo-Indian named Mary Quinn, but instead she was able to trace them back to the United States. To its very founding, in fact. Her six times great-grandfather, Michael Farley, was an ally of George Washington and 'pretty much in the room where it happened'. One of Farley's sons, Jabez, fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston. There was an extraordinary moment at the end where Husain travelled to Ipswich, Massachusetts, and found a plaque in the library commemorating Farley and his four sons as 'soldiers of the Revolution'.
Who Do You Think You Are? can be frustrating when the subject's ancestors come from peasant stock, because the historical records often don't go much further than certificates of births, deaths and marriages, with the occasional newspaper report thrown in about a great-uncle going to jail. Husain's distinguished family history came with ample documentation – Harvard has an extensive archive – and also some uncomfortable information: Joseph Farley left America to seek his fortune as a planter, on a sugar plantation which would have used indentured labour. 'That's not a very happy thing to find out,' Husain said.
The programme began with the always-elegant Husain in the BBC newsroom – now rather out of date, because she quit in December for a new job at Bloomberg. On the Today programme, She was known for her sharp intellect and a coolness when approaching even the most incendiary topics. Here she was warmer, intrigued by every new discovery and bursting with pride by the end. She was only sad that her father, who died nine years ago, was not around to share the experience.