The Tate family has been central to village life ever since they moved to Emmerdale in 1989.
When the Tate family initially moved to Emmerdale in 1989, it was led by patriarch Frank (Norman Bowler) and his kids, Chris (Peter Amory) and Zoe (Leah Bracknell), from his previous marriage. A month later, the gorgeous Kim (Claire King), Frank’s second wife, joined them.
Since they had purchased Home Farm, they were noticeable right away and soon took centre stage in village affairs. For the last thirty-five years, audiences have been engrossed in their complex connections.
Even though Frank passed away in the show in 1997, his influence may still be felt. The revelation that Cain’s (Jeff Hordley) half-brother Caleb (Will Ash) is truly Frank’s long-lost son sent shockwaves through the Dingle clan only last year.
The fact that Frank’s grandkids are now leading the way for the next generation of Tates means that their presence in the programme is unlikely to fade very soon. Kim Tate, however, is still as cunning as ever and often appears in major plots on the show.
Express.co.uk has created this helpful family tree since it may be easy to lose sight of who is who with so many family members popping up out of nowhere.
Frank Tate – Norman Bowler
The first real villain in Emmerdale was the father of the Tate family, who moved there in 1989. He was a heavy drinker and prone to domestic abuse; in 1996, he attempted to kill Kim, but killed her doppelgänger instead.
He was previously married to Jean, who passed away from cancer in 1984. Viewers subsequently discovered that he had helped her commit herself and had been having an extramarital affair with his secretary, Kim, throughout her illness.
James was born to Kim and Frank together, despite their turbulent relationship, divorce, and subsequent reconciliation. The character was killed off a year after Norman decided in 1996 that he wanted to quit the serial opera.
Frank passed away from a heart attack after Kim “returned from the dead” and accused him of her “murder.” After his passing, Liam Hammond came forward to say he was the child of Frank’s extramarital liaison with an unidentified lady.
That was not the last of his offspring to appear. The revelation that Caleb is his son due to a brief relationship with Faith Dingle (Sally Dexter) startled viewers last year. Frank’s legacy endures in Emmerdale thanks to the presence of his children and grandkids.
Kim Tate – Claire King
When Frank Tate’s wife was dying, he started an affair with his secretary, Kim Barker. It was evident when she moved to Emmerdale a month after her husband that his grown children disapproved of his glitzy second wife.
After enduring Frank’s inebriated assaults and attempted murder, she demonstrated her own homicidal impulses over time. She essentially terrified Frank to death in one of the best death scenes ever on the soap opera when she “came back from the dead” and gave him a heart attack.
Over the years, she has featured many dramatic plots including adultery, attempted murders, fraud, and paternity issues. Two years after Franks’s death, she left the dales and was last heard from in 2005, when she brought flowers at Seth’s burial and was said to be residing in Ireland.
Her son James was taken to boarding school and she served time in prison off-screen in 2015. But in 2018, she was set free and went back to the hamlet to take her rightful role as Queen Bee.
She has wrecked havoc and shown that she still has her cunning inclinations since her return. She also has the unique distinction of being the only Tate family founding member currently appearing in films.
Chris Tate – Peter Amory
Chris was first presented as the managing director of the haulage company owned by his father. Even though he had his own apartment, he relocated to Home Farm in order to be closer to Kathy Merrick (Malandra Burrows), his object of devotion, even if he and stepmother Kim still shared love.
Although they were never married, he and Kathy had a turbulent relationship. He was initially a kind and good character, but after being paraplegic in one of the largest tricks ever pulled off on the soap opera, he become angry and resentful.
When he learned Kathy was only with him out of sympathy, he and Kathy got divorced. After after, he wed Rachel Hughes, her closest friend (Glenda McKay), with whom he had a son named Joseph Mark. However, the marriage caused friction between them since his father disapproved of it.
The cunning former prostitute Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins), who also had an affair with his sister Zoe, would be his second wife. He took advantage of the news that he had an incurable brain tumour to get vengeance on her for having cheated on him. He committed himself to frame her for his “murder” after squandering all of his money to make sure she would have nothing left, and he passed away in the same place where his father had died six years before.
While incarcerated for his murder, Charity gave birth to his son Noah after his death.
Zoe Tate – Leah Bracknell
When Village vet Zoe Tate came out in 1993, she became the first lesbian character in a British soap drama.
Being Frank Tate’s only daughter, she was engaged in a number of significant plot points, such as her brother and father passing away, her stepmother betraying her and leaving, and her struggle with schizophrenia.
She found out she was pregnant while being sectioned because of the sickness, but she had no clue how it had occurred. Later, following her mother’s passing, she gave birth to a daughter called Jean (Megan Pearson).
She left Emmerdale on September 22, 2005, having gone on trial for attempted murder. She detonated Home Farm as a farewell present, and the fallout from her actions made sure she would never be forgotten.
James Tate – Alex Lincoln
James “Jamie” Tate was the only child of Frank and Kim Tate. He had a turbulent upbringing since his father passed away when he was a newborn, his mother staged her own death, and his nanny Jan Glover (Roberta Kerr) abducted him.
He moved out of the village with his mother in 1999, but he ended up in boarding school after she was imprisoned in 2015. When he initially came to the community, he kept his marriage to Andrea and their daughter Millie a secret. He had followed in his aunt Zoe’s footsteps and trained as a veterinarian.
In 2021, Andrea perished in a labyrinth fire, although by then, their relationship had become very strained, and he had an affair with Belle Dingle. Following a one-night affair with Gabby Thomas (Rosie Bentham) in 2021, he also gave birth to another son, Thomas.
He staged his own death that year, following in his mother’s footsteps, but it was subsequently discovered that he was still alive, keeping the possibility of his eventual return open.
Liam Hammond – Mark Powley
It wasn’t until two years after Frank Tate’s passing that Liam Hammond, his illegitimate son, came to light. He is the oldest of Frank’s children, having been born two years before Chris Tate.
Frank was raised in poverty after his mother abandoned him when she was pregnant. Feeling resentful of his circumstances, he abducted Chris Tate, his half-brother and employer, in September 1999. Despite the fact that he was keeping Chris captive, the two unexpectedly became close.
Zoe, Liam’s half-sister, was challenged by Liam after she saved Chris and learned Liam was responsible for the abduction. After shooting him to death, she and Chris deleted any proof that he was Frank’s son.
Chris protested about the killing and, in an attempt to appease his sister, buried him next to Frank’s tomb.
Liam has the distinction of being the Tate who has spent the least amount of time on the show—less than three months in the village.
Caleb Miligan – William Ash
On Christmas Day 2022, Caleb Milligan made a spectacular entrance into Emmerdale after paying a visit to his jailed half-brother Cain Dingle.
But a few months later, it came to light that he was related to the Tates since Frank was his father.
He was sent in foster care as a newborn since his mother Faith Dingle (Sally Dexter) gave birth to him while she was incarcerated.
Believing that Home Farm was his birthright, he was working with his son Nicky when he first came to attempt to wrest it from Kim Tate and Gabby Thomas.
Since then, he has remained at the centre of the action, and it doesn’t seem like he will be leaving anytime soon.
Joseph Tate – Ned Porteous
After growing up as an orphan, Joe, the oldest son of Chris Tate, and his aunt Zoe departed the community in 2005. When he returned in 2017, twelve years later, under the identity Thomas Waterhouse, it was evident he had acquired the Machevlian proclivities from his family.
He started dating Charley Webb’s character Debbie Dingle, Charity’s daughter, with the intention of exacting retribution. Subsequently, he disclosed his actual name and forced the young mother and her kids out of Jacobs Fold. He informed her, rather viciously, that she was only a byproduct of his need for vengeance. Afterwards, he purchased Home Farm, the house he had grown up in, and moved in to help the Tates restore the “big house”. Remarkably, he reconciled with Debbie and began to develop a strong relationship with his half-brother, Noah Dingle.
He seemed to meet a horrific end, in typical Tate manner, but nothing was quite as it seemed. It seemed that he had passed away in October 2018 after taking a blow from Debbie’s father Cain and striking his skull on a rock. But he hasn’t been heard from since it was subsequently discovered that he was alive and well in another country, subsisting on Kim’s business’s profits.
Noah Dingle – Jack Downham
Noah was born at a correctional facility, where his mother Charity was incarcerated for his father’s murder. His aunt Zoe promised to get Charity out of prison and pay her off if she could raise him, even though his paternity was first questioned once it was determined that his father was Chris. After his father, she gave him the new name Christopher.
She attempted to adopt him, but was denied due to her past mental health problems. Social services then enquired as to Charity’s desire for his return.
He was raised in the community, with the exception of the two years from 2005 to 2007 when he and his mother lived in Spain. He made contact with Joe Tate, his half-brother, in 2018, when he moved back to the community and started missing school to come see him at Home Farm.
During his turbulent adolescent years, he even overdosed on narcotics once. He was imprisoned for three months in 2022 after being reported for stalking Chloe Harris by Charity.
He started seeing Amelia Spencer while he was incarcerated. After his release, they formally formed a pair, and he started to act as a father figure to her daughter Esther, whom she shares with Samson.
Jean Tate – Megan Pearson
Jean, the only child of Zoe Tate, was born in January 2003. She was born out of Zoe and Scott Windsor’s one-night affair. But because of her schizophrenia, Zoe didn’t remember sleeping with him, so when she found out she was pregnant, she thought she had been raped.
The difficult circumstances surrounding her conception caused her to experience a great deal of trauma in her early years. She stayed on the show until September 2005, at which point she and her mother and cousin Joe relocated to New Zealand. She hasn’t gone back to the village as of yet.
Nicky Miligan – Lewis Cope
Similar to his half-cousin Joe Tate, Nicky remained secretive about who he really was when he initially moved to the village in late 2022, when Dawn Fletcher and Gabby Thomas were in dire need of a new nanny for their respective kids. He got to know Gabby and even made her a proposal at The Hide Bistro. But he was keeping a secret—the fact that he was really the son of Caleb Miligan. Given that he is Frank Tate’s grandson, Thomas, Gabby’s son, is his cousin.
It was discovered that Caleb had chosen to take advantage of Gabby’s love for Nicky by pressuring his son to get married to her, after his actual identity was made public. Sadly for Caleb, the scheme failed miserably the moment Nicky’s buddy Ally (Josh Horrocks) showed up in the Dales. He turned out to be Nicky’s boyfriend thereafter.
After Nicky revealed the truth, there was a violent fight between Caleb and Nicky on their wedding day, throwing the whole celebration into disarray. It was discovered in June 2023 that he had pushed his father down a ravine, almost killing him.
Nicky has stayed in the community after Caleb’s recovery.
Millie Tate and Thomas Tate – Willow Belle and Bertie Brotherton
The youngest grandkids of Frank Tate are Millie and Thomas Tate. Together with Jamie, Kim’s son, he fathered them both. Jamie’s ex-wife Andrea is Millie’s mother, and Thomas is the product of a one-night affair with Gabby Thomas.
Although Millie and her parents presently reside overseas, they may eventually return to the area. Thomas, meanwhile, continues to live in Emmerdale with his devoted mother and meddling grandma.
- Coronation Street Tracy Barlow star’s life – soap exit, ‘incredible pain’ and famous ex
- Coronation Street tackle issue of botched cosmetic surgery in latest storyline
- Coronation Street spoilers with Joel fears, Roy in danger and Bethany’s life-changing news
- ITV Coronation Street fans ‘rumble’ cruel betrayal with Ken Barlow to ‘lose everything’
- ITV Emmerdale’s Nate ‘actually dead’ as fans ‘work out’ who’s pretending to be him
- Emmerdale: 5 theories on what’s really happened to Nate after ‘bizarre’ exit
