Zoe Ball shares her emotional journey of discovering her family history on the BBC show 'Who Do You Think You Are?' She learns about her grandmother's struggles with mental health and poverty, and shares her gratitude for the show's insight into mental health issues.
Fans were left emotional on Tuesday night after Zoe Ball took a deep dive into her family history on Who Do You Think You Are?
Tracing back her family tree, the BBC presenter, 55, discovered that Margaret 'Peggy' Minto, the mother of her late mum Julia, was committed for acute mania after being put on trial for shoplifting. Fighting back tears, Zoe learned about the contrast between her own life and her grandmother's – a coalminer's daughter who worked as a domestic servant for wealthy families from the age of 15.
Zoe learns that Peggy who lived in the North East of England became depressed after her eldest daughter, the daughter's husband and their child went to live in Lancashire. She fabricated stories about herself, and became 'excessively extravagant with money,' running up a series of large bills. And after being arrested for shoplifting in 1963, aged 50, doctors committed her after she began to express 'grandiose ideas' during the trial. Peggy died aged 66 in 1979, when Zoe was nine.
Her death certificate mentions pneumonia, liver failure, and manic-depressive psychosis. Although Peggy spent her life in and out of hospital after the committal, Zoe was moved to be shown a second letter she wrote about knitting jumpers for Julia, who died of cancer in April 2024.
'I am really happy just to see she is doing well,' Zoe said. 'Bless her heart. I am so relieved that she was OK again. Seeing my mum's name in there as well.
Thank you for showing me that.
' 'I am so glad she managed to get the right treatment. She was able to be a mother and a grandma.
' Viewers were brought to tears as they watched Zoe learn about her grandmother's history. Fans penned on Instagram: 'It's so emotional studying family history', 'Just watched your episode. Very moving and fascinating ❤️', 'Love this show, tissues ready i think xx', 'A really brilliant episode so far as I'm watching it. Thanks for sharing it.
The letters from your grandma are so insightful about mental health issues. I'm sure they will be helpful for so many people to see', Tracing back her family tree, the presenter discovered that Margaret 'Peggy' Minto, the mother of her late mum Julia, was committed for acute mania after being put on trial for shoplifting Elsewhere in the episode, Zoe learned that one of her forebears, a Cornish miner turned Northumberland greengrocer, couldn't even write his name: legal documents were signed with 'the mark of James Temby'.
Born illegitimate, James grew up in unimaginable hardship. His mother, Julia, who worked with her sisters in the copper mines around Redruth, was hauled up before the magistrates, for getting into a fight with another woman. Another branch of the family, 400 miles to the north, suffered brutal poverty, too — sharing a four-storey tenement building in Glasgow with about 50 people crammed into a dozen rooms. Disease was rife, with a single toilet in the yard.
Death certificates showed Zoe's ancestors died of everything from tuberculosis to laryngitis, while many children didn't survive beyond their first few months
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