Vorderman was born in Bedford to a Dutch father and Welsh mother. Her parents broke up three weeks after her birth, and her mother took the family back to her home town of Prestatyn, North Wales, where Vorderman and siblings grew up in a lone parent h

Vorderman was born in Bedford to a Dutch father and Welsh mother. Her parents broke up three weeks after her birth, and her mother took the family back to her home town of Prestatyn, North Wales, where Vorderman and siblings grew up in a lone parent household. Their mother remarried in 1970 to an Italian national. Vorderman attended the Roman Catholic comprehensive Blessed Edward Jones High School in Rhyl.

She refused to meet or have contact with her estranged father until January 2002, when (according to the Daily Mail) she relented and the two were reconciled.[citation needed] She did not trace the Dutch side of her family until 2007, as part of the BBC genealogical programme Who Do You Think You Are?. It was only at this point that she discovered that her father had been an active member of the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation. He died whilst the programme was being filmed. Her great-grandfather Adolphe Vorderman played a key role in the discovery of vitamins.