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Cheryl Ann Tweedy was born on 30 June 1983 in Newcastle and is 41 years old. Also known simply as Cheryl and previously known as Cheryl Cole, she is a former member of Girls Aloud, platinum-selling singer and judge on The X Factor<\/em>.<\/p> Cheryl grew up on a Newcastle housing estate as one of five children. She now lives in London but feels like she is deeply rooted in the North East, with her paternal side \u201cGeordie to the core\u201d. She begins her episode of Who Do You Think You Are?<\/a><\/em> by meeting her dad back in Heaton, who reveals that there were several mariners in her family.<\/p> To learn more about her seafaring connections, Cheryl heads to the Discovery Museum in Newcastle, where she is presented with a record for her 4x great grandfather John Wood Laing, showing that he became a mariner\u2019s apprentice in 1845.<\/p> She also finds an old photograph<\/a> of John with his wife, Caroline, in an unusually relaxed pose for Victorian times. They were married in 1849 in North Shields, which Cheryl visits and sees they lived in the \u2018low town\u2019 \u2013 a rough area. However, from the photo, John looks like he was doing well, and concludes it was probably taken to celebrate his \u2018graduation\u2019 to Master Mariner at the age of 29.<\/p> Through various documents, Cheryl discovers that John became the captain of the ship La Belle<\/em>, sailing to Quebec in 1857. He even took along his troublesome brother, James (also a mariner), who had previously been \u201cput in irons\u201d for punching one of his superiors while serving in Hong Kong.<\/p> Sadly, Cheryl sees a crew list for the voyage to Quebec, revealing that La Belle<\/em> sank on the way back home to England, never to be seen again. Caroline was left a widow at 29, and forced to become a charwoman doing odd jobs \u2013 a huge step down in status and financially.<\/p> It marks a sad end to a branch of her family that Cheryl found herself able to relate to \u2013 particularly the hard work John must have put in to succeed.<\/p> Moving on to her mother\u2019s side of the family, Cheryl decides to investigate her elusive great grandfather, who was never mentioned while she growing up.<\/p> By ordering the marriage certificates<\/a> for his twin daughters, Cheryl discovers that his name was Joseph Wilson Ridley, a grocery warehouse man. She also finds that he was a soldier during the First World War<\/a>, serving with the Durham Light Infantry. However, various records indicate that Joseph\u2019s wife was a lady named Mary Ann \u2013 not her great grandmother, Edith Annie.<\/p> While heading across the Channel to learn about her great grandfather\u2019s wartime experiences, a letter from a distant relative reveals that Edith had actually been Joseph\u2019s housekeeper, falling pregnant with Cheryl\u2019s grandmother and sister shortly after Mary died. The couple never married, causing great scandal within the family.<\/p>