Does Every Family Hold A Dark Past?

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

History Hit

Myths, Ghosts, History, Supernatural, Folklore, Mystery, Paranormal, Ufos, True Crime, Society & Culture, Murder, Serial Killers

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Maddy and Anthony dig into their own family history in collaboration with Ancestry! They find stories from the darker side of the past in their own family trees. Huge thanks to Ancestry's genealogists and family historians Jenn Utley, Joe Buggy and Christina Copland.

If you haven’t yet, head to here to start your own family history journey today for free. The AncestryDNA kit makes an amazing stocking stuffer. Be sure to subscribe to the Ancestry YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@AncestryUS too!

Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Freddy Chick, Peta Stamper and Charlotte Long.

You can now watch After Dark on Youtube! www.youtube.com/@afterdarkhistoryhit

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All music from Epidemic Sounds.

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	William Palmer was a psychopathic Victorian doctor who used poisons to kill many victims.
0:10.8	He even killed his own family for insurance claims.
0:13.8	He poisoned people at horse races because he owed them money.
0:17.7	He became the stuff of nightmares.
0:20.3	Charles Dickens called him the greatest villain that
0:23.0	ever stood in the old Bailey. But this monstrous doctor bought his deadly poisons from my ancestor.
0:33.4	Every family holds its secrets. Well, hello and welcome to After Dark.
1:02.2	I'm Anthony.
1:02.8	And today we are excited to be celebrating.
1:06.2	From roll.
1:07.1	Wait for it.
1:08.2	International Dark Side of Your Family Tree Day.
1:11.1	Yay. No, wait. That made it sound like it's a tree day. I'm going to do it again. International Dark Side of Your Family Tree Day. Yay.
1:11.4	No, wait, that made it sound like it's a tree day. I'm going to do it again. International Dark Side of Your Family Tree Day. Yay. We've made this up. We have made it up. It's not a real thing. But we do genuinely both love family history. We do. And we are excited to do this. I'm very, very excited. it. Because what we,'ve said this before, Maddie, but like, it's about everyone showing up into the history space when we're talking about family histories. And people are innately interested in their own family history.
1:35.6	Not for everybody. No. Wow.
1:37.5	And we have some incredible stories. Well, Maddie particularly, I don't know about mine, have some incredible stories from your past and your family tree, and we're about to talk about that again. And after Dark is here to tell you that every family tree has a nefarious twisted branch on it somewhere. And today, Maddie is going to share a story about her connection to the infamous figure of Palmer, the poisoner, the Victorian doctor, we heard about
2:02.8	in the intro. I certainly am. Now, we have been collaborating on this episode with ancestry. And if you
2:07.9	don't know who ancestry are, you're living under a rock. They are a global leader when it comes
2:11.8	to researching your family history and getting DNA tests done to find out your own genetic
2:16.5	background. Now, you've had this done for this episode.
2:18.4	I have, yes.
2:18.9	I'm so excited.
	...

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