About the county

It was back in September 2006 that the Hollywood superstar, Susan Sarandon, set off on the quest to track down her Welsh roots with the cameras of BBC Wales optimistically in tow.

But it was an ancestral trip that not only saw her in the depths of Wiltshire but returning again and again to the tiny village of Ludgershall.

Born Susan Abigail Tomalin, the Oscar winning actress had always believed that her roots were Welsh.

Looking over the Parish records

And with a surname derived from the Welsh name Thomas it certainly seemed to make sense:

"Of course when I started acting, all these very interesting actors were Welsh, and it just sounded like a very kinda explosive background," said Susan.

"I was very happy to think that I was part Welsh, but I knew so little so I was open to anything."

Which was just as well as not only was she about to find out that four generations of her family actually lay in the heart of Wiltshire but that her past held tales of poverty, illegitimacy and law-breaking.

A criminal past

It was Winifred Dixon, the church warden at St. James' Church in Ludgershall, who uncovered the proof that the Dead Man Walking star had a criminal past.

St. James' church, Ludgershall

It was Susan's Great Great Uncle, to be precise, who'd been the culprit being caught in the act in the woods at Amport in 1818:

"Young Charles Guyatt at the age of 17 was committed to the assize court for a felony," says Winifred, "he'd killed a coney - a rabbit - and he'd used a net and a ferret to chase it."

Given a six month sentence, for poaching, the young Charles Guyatt had not been able to face returning to his home village of Ludgershall:

"The name Guyatt seems to have died out in this area after that," says Winifred. "They went away, after the felony was committed, probably because they felt ashamed."

In fact Susan's Great Great Uncle must have felt deeply ashamed as he was not only tracked down to Bridgend in Glamorgan but finally turned up in a Welsh-owned ironworks in the Ukraine:

"Now we have our Welsh connection to Wales," says Susan.

"Now I see - through crime we got to Wales. Excellent!"

Susan Sarandon with Winifred Dixon

Spunky Susanna

Meanwhile back in Ludgershall the actress' Great Great Grandmother – Sophia Guyatt had tied the knot with local labourer James Beams and in 1853 given birth to a daughter... Susanna Beams aka Susan's Great Grandmother.

Nick-named 'Spunky Susanna', by the 61-year-old actress, the Ludgershall lass was still a teenager when she escaped rural poverty and made the move to London to become a domestic servant at a grand house in Portman Square.

A few years on, at the age of just 23, she'd not only met and married Susan's Great Grandfather, William Tomalin, but had followed him out to America making the voyage alone to New York on the SS Aragon:

"That's very romantic on her part," says Susan, "or desperate."

Either way, Spunky Susanna's emigration to the States from the small Wiltshire village of Ludgershall is why Susan Sarandon calls New York home… and would, it seems, make the Hollywood actress more Wiltshire then Welsh...