Exploring family history is an urge that has gripped the nation, and it has gripped Jeremy Hardy too. In My Family and Other Strangers he sets out on the road and on the world wide web to find out all he can about the Hardy clan.

His aim is to prove – or more likely disprove – his grandmother Becky's dubious claims that they are descended from Sir Christopher Wren and that Jeremy's great grandfather was personal bodyguard and confident to the King. Wild stories apart, Jeremy travels as far a field as his local library and the hostile waters around Malta in order to find family traits that go beyond a big nose and IBS.

Whatever he finds, how will he know how much is in the blood and how much is coincidence? Might he discover a comedy gene? But perhaps what he will find is more important is to build up a picture of those relatives he knew too fleetingly as a small child, and the people who filled their world.

Negotiating the living and the dead, the familiar and the distant, in My Family and Other Strangers Jeremy Hardy takes us on a fascinating and often hilarious journey into the world of family ancestry.