Biography of dave stotts

Edinburgh actor Ken Stott gets the genealogy treatment in STV's version of Who Do You Think You Are?

Ken returned to his home town of Edinburgh and visited Sicily on his emotional journey to learn about his ancestors and the jobs they did for the third episode.

The Vice and Rebus actor's latest challenge is to delve deeper into his family's fascinating past.

His father, David was born and bred in Edinburgh, but his mother Antonia's family is Sicilian. He says: "We were considered quite special." Ken sets off on a journey to discover more about the two very different worlds his parents' families came from. He starts at his old school in Edinburgh, George Heriot's, one of Scotland's most famous private establishments.

He was a pupil at the school in the s, as was his father David who went on to teach there for 35 years.

Ken learns that in the s the school offered scholarships to the sons of local tradesmen and Ken's father was bright enough to be offered one.

Ken is shown the school's record books and finds details of his grandfather, another David Stott, who was the last in a long line of Stott tailors. He learned the family trade from his father, George Stott.

George was based in the small rural town of Callander. It was here, in one of Scotland's popular tourist destinations that he settled after meeting the daughter of a baker.

Local historian Ken Nisbet explains to Ken George was tailoring for his father in Montrose when he met his wife Catherine Campbell at a dance. They married only a few months before their first child was born and George went on to establish a tailor shop in Callander.

To find out what life was like for his forefathers, Ken spends time working at both a small tailors and a bakers, and discovers things could be pretty tough.

Ken says: "It has been exhausting. That really makes you think how easy we have it."