She’s the most colourful of all the TOWIE stars – and now Gemma Collins has discovered her ancestors were every bit as vibrant. In the latest instalment of Who Do You Think You Are?, Gemma explores her mum Joan’s family tree, which takes her to Dorset Street in East London, the scene of one of Jack The Ripper’s murders.
“My family lived there!” says Gemma. “I truly believe my [great-great] grandfather was Jack The Ripper. He’s got to be. He never got caught, did he?! It’s unbelievable.” Not only did The Ripper kill one of his victims on Dorset Street, two others had links to London’s “worst street”.
Gemma, 43, has many emotional moments on the show – as she tries to solve a family mystery. Her beloved mum Joan, who has appeared on TOWIE with her daughter, was abandoned at a hospital as a newborn and placed in foster care. Growing up, Gemma has always been aware of her mum’s heartache over being “not wanted”.
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Now with the help of the show’s genealogists, she’s discovered the truth about why Joan was separated from her mother and has brought the family “closure” after a lifetime of suffering .
“Throughout the years, Mum suffered terribly with feeling that she was not wanted,” says Gemma. “It was a taboo subject. My mum struggled but went on to raise two very successful children, but she’s always held it inside.”
After Joan was fostered, she was hit by further tragedy when her foster mother passed away. Joan was just seven. Luckily, her foster mum’s daughter took over and raised her but Joan never understood why her biological mum hadn’t kept her. On the show, Gemma discovers that Joan’s 17-year-old mum was suffering with mental health issues and her baby was most likely taken away from her. Then Gemma meets her mum’s long-lost cousins who have been living a 20-minute drive away for years.
“It’s healed my mum. No amount of money in the world could have given her those answers,” says Gemma. “This is the best present I could ever give her. She’s had closure, she’s got the answers that she’s always wanted and that’s been great.”
Since the cameras have stopped rolling, the whole family has got together at Gemma’s home and found they have a lot in common. “It was like we’d known each other for years,” says Gemma. “You see it on Davina McCall ’s Long Lost Family, the happiness, the joy and the pain it takes away for people when they’re reunited. This is a real game changer.”
Gemma found her family was full of characters and was so impressed by her ancestral grandmother Thirza’s dedication to helping her family better themselves by moving to Essex, that she’s decided to name her own daughter Thirza.
Gemma hopes that starting a family will be “the next thing” and Thirza, which means “delight” or “pleasing” in Hebrew, is top of her list of baby names. She says, “I love Thirza, she reminds me of myself.”
Gemma now might embody Essex, but her search led her to a place she’d never heard of: Foulness Island. In the past, the island was only reachable by a deadly tidal path called The Broomway.
Gemma explains, “I love anything witchy and spooky, and what I really loved is when we went to Foulness Island and heard the story of The Broomway: you were lucky to get across, because if the tide came in it would kill you and they would say you were a witch if you managed to get through it! I loved it there.
“My mum has always loved ravens, if you go to my mum’s house, she’s got bloody ravens everywhere, and Foulness Island is known for crows and ravens!
“My family worked on the land and I love getting back to nature. It was just really nice to know there was more to me than just being born in a hospital in Romford.”