J.K Rowling discovers family history

The Harry Potter author found she comes from a long line of single mothers during an appearance on BBC show Who Do You Think You Are

Harry Potter author J.K Rowling discovered her family history during an appearance on BBC genealogy show Who Do You Think You are, which revealed she comes from a long line of single mothers.

HARRY POTTER CAST: THEN AND NOW

A single mother herself, she wrote the first book in the famous Harry Potter series while living on benefits in an Edinburgh flat with her baby daughter.

And during the course of the research, the famous writer discovered that many of the women in her family – including her grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother were also in the same situation.

‘What I’m very struck by is how many single mothers I’m descended from in this line of the family,’ she said in an interview for the BBC programme.

‘Twenty years ago, I was teaching and writing in my spare time and was very skint. And not long after that, I became a single mum, so I feel the connection.’

Rowling – who is now married to her second husband, doctor Neil Murray – told the Radio Times: ‘I went into the programme wanting the truth, no matter what it was, because I knew so little about my French ancestry.

‘It is humbling to see yourself as a tiny part of a huge family tree, but it is also strangely reassuring.’

In the past the multi-million earning author has spoken openly about her struggles as a single mother, which has led her to become president of Gingerbread, a charity set up to help lone parents.

‘Women like me... were, according to popular myth, a prime cause of social breakdown, and in it for all we could get: free money, state-funded accommodation, an easy life,’ she said.

'Between 1993 and 1997 I did the job of two parents, qualified and then worked as a secondary school teacher, wrote one and a half novels and did the planning for a further five. For a while, I was clinically depressed. To be told, over and over again, that I was feckless, lazy — even immoral — did not help.'

HARRY POTTER CAST: THEN AND NOW

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