Hollywood star Kate Winslet, 43, was devastated to find out the grim fate of her 19th-century Swedish ancestors – having discovered they had struggled just to survive, after a series of crop failures blighted their country.
Her four-times great-grandfather, Anders Jonsson, was a groom on an estate where workers got paid in tokens rather than cash, essentially meaning they could never leave. Anders and his wife, Anna, had five children, but in the turmoil of famine in 1831, their infant son, Gustaf, tragically died from malnutrition at just three months old.
The Titanic star discovered Anders was jailed five months later, after stealing some potatoes. ‘Good for you – I’ve stolen potatoes, too,’ she said. ‘That’s horrible, though. He was trying to do the right thing for his children.
‘They…
