Meghan Markle Facts & Worksheets

Rachel Meghan Markle is a former actress who appeared in several TV series before marrying Prince Harry in 2018 and becoming the Duchess of Sussex. Meghan and her husband built the Archewell Foundation and she still continues to advocate for women’s rights.

See the fact file below for more information on Meghan Markle, or you can download our 26-page Megan Markle worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

• Rachel Meghan Markle was born at West Park Hospital in Canoga Park, Los Angeles, California, on August 4, 1981. Her parents are make-up artist Doria Ragland and Emmy Award-winning television lighting director and director of photography Thomas Markle Sr. Meghan’s parents divorced when she was two years old.
• At 11, Meghan and her classmates wrote to Procter & Gamble, requesting that a dishwashing soap commercial on national television be gender-neutralized. 
• She was a Protestant and attended Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, an all-girl Catholic school.
• Markle participated in school theatrical productions and musicals, where her father assisted with lighting. 
• She was admitted to Northwestern University (NU) in Evanston, Illinois, in 1999, where she became a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Markle volunteered with the Glass Slipper Project alongside other Kappa Kappa Gamma members.
• With the assistance of her uncle Michael Markle, she obtained an internship as a junior press officer at the American embassy in Buenos Aires after her junior year.
• Markle graduated from Northwestern’s School of Communication in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in theater and international studies.

ACTING CAREER

• Markle revealed that she had difficulty acquiring the roles due to racial ambiguity. Meghan’s father is Caucasian, and her mother is an African-American. 
• Her first on-screen appearance was as a nurse in an episode of the daytime soap opera General Hospital. Markle also appeared in minor roles on the television shows Century City (2004), The War at Home (2006), and CSI: NY (2006).
• She appeared on the US version of the game show Deal or No Deal between 2006 and 2007 as one of the women who held a briefcase. She portrayed Junior Agent Amy Jessup in the first two episodes of Fox’s Fringe’s second season.
• Markle had supporting roles in the 2010 films Get Him to the Greek, Remember Me, and The Candidate, as well as the 2011 film Horrible Bosses.
• She became a cast member of the USA Network show Suits in July 2011. Rachel Zane, her character on Suits, began as a paralegal and later on became an attorney.
• Markle was the founder and editor-in-chief of the lifestyle website The Tig from 2014 to 2017. She got the name from the red wine Tignanello. She closed The Tig in April 2017. One of The Tig’s features was Tig Talk, a column that profiled women. Markle developed an adept and polished social media presence, with 1.9 million followers on Instagram at the time of its closure. 

MARRIED LIFE

• Markle began dating Prince Harry in mid-2016. According to the couple, they first connected on Instagram and explained that they were arranged on a blind date by a mutual friend in July 2016. 
• On March 6, 2018, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, baptized and confirmed Markle in the Church of England in preparation for the wedding. The wedding occurred on May 19 at Windsor Castle’s St George’s Chapel.
• Markle soon explained there was a private exchange of vows three days earlier in their garden with the Archbishop of Canterbury. This private exchange of vows, however, was not a legally recognized marriage. The newlywed couple reportedly agreed in advance that any excess funds generated by the BBC broadcast of the wedding ceremony would be donated to a charity of their choice. Feeding Britain (which supplies food packages to marginalized families) was chosen to receive £90,000 from the BBC in April 2020.
• The Duke and Duchess lived at Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace in London after their marriage. They signed a two-year lease on Westfield Large, located on the Great Tew Estate in the Cotswolds, in May 2018. The couple considered relocating to Kensington Palace’s 21-bedroom Apartment 1 but chose Frogmore Cottage in Windsor Castle’s Home Park.
• Meghan gave birth to a son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, on May 6, 2019. The office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex was relocated to Buckingham Palace and officially closed on March 31, 2020, when the Sussexs ceased all official royal engagements. 
• On June 4, 2021, she gave birth to a daughter, Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are also fond of pets. They have two Beagles, Guy and Mamma Mia, as well as a Labrador named Pula. Meghan also had a dog named Bogart, a Labrador-German Shepherd cross who was put up for adoption with a friend in Canada due to his inability to move freely due to old age.

PUBLIC LIFE AND ROYAL DUTIES

• Meghan’s first official public appearance together with Prince Harry after their engagement was on December 1, 2017, at a World AIDS Day walkabout in Nottingham. The first royal occasion she attended with the Queen was the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey on March 12, 2018. 
• Meghan’s first official foreign trip as a royal was to Dublin, Ireland, in July 2018, along with Harry. The Duke and Duchess attended the 2018 Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia, in October 2018.
• Throughout their stay in Morocco in February 2019, the Duke and Duchess concentrated on projects centering on “women’s empowerment, girls’ education, inclusivity and encouragement of social entrepreneurship”. Meghan also assisted her husband’s work as a Commonwealth Youth Ambassador, which included overseas tours.
• In 2019, the Duke and Duchess launched an Instagram social media profile.

Stepping back

In January 2020, the couple returned to the UK from a holiday in Canada and announced that they were going to step down as senior members of the royal family and would spend time in both North America and the United Kingdom.

Meghan’s final solo participation as a senior royal was March 7, 2020, which entailed a visit to Dagenham’s Robert Clack School alongside International Women’s Day. On March 9, 2020, the couple attended the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, which became their final participation as a couple before they formally stepped down on March 31. 

They decided to make their first official appearance in the UK two years later, in June 2022, while participating in the Platinum Jubilee National Service of Thanksgiving.

In September 2022, they traveled to the United Kingdom and Germany for a series of charitable events in Manchester and Düsseldorf. Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on September 8, 2022, while Meghan and Harry were in London making preparations to join a charity event. 

The Prince and Princess of Wales were welcomed by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Windsor on September 10, 2022. The two couples were seen together for the first time since March 2020.

CHARITY WORK AND ADVOCACY

• Markle joined the international network One Young World as a counselor in 2014 and gave a talk at its summit in Dublin. She also attended the 2016 opening ceremony in Ottawa. Meghan also traveled with the United Service Organizations to Spain, Italy, Turkey, Afghanistan, and England.
• When Meghan was in Toronto, she decided to volunteer at a program at St. Felix Centre called Community Meals. She also contributed food to the set of Suits.
• Meghan is an outspoken feminist who plans to use her position as a member of the royal family to advocate for women’s rights and social justice. Markle joined World Vision Canada as a global ambassador in 2016, traveling to Rwanda for the Clean Water Campaign. 
• Markle became interested in the Hubb Community Kitchen, which is run by survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire, in January 2018. She visited the kitchen regularly and suggested that the displaced women publish a cookbook to help fund the group. Her first charity project as Duchess of Sussex, Together: Our Community Cookbook, was announced in September.
• In March 2020, it was confirmed that Meghan’s first post-royal project would be narrating Disneynature’s documentary Elephant, which was released on April 3. As a form of support for elephants, Disneynature and the Disney Conservation Fund donated to Elephant Without Borders for species conservation in Botswana.
• In April 2020, Meghan and her husband volunteered to personally deliver Project Angel Food prepackaged meals to Los Angeles citizens amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Meghan and Harry partnered with Baby2Baby in August 2020 to take part in the drive-through distribution of classroom supplies to pupils.
• Meghan and Harry confirmed in April 2020 that an alternative foundation called “Archewell” would be established in place of the Sussex Royal Foundation. Archewell is a registered trademark in the United States. Its official website went live in October 2020.
• The couple was named campaign chairs for Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World, an event organized by Global Citizen to increase access to COVID-19 vaccinations, in April 2021. They also announced their support for the same organization’s vaccine equity fundraiser and wrote an open letter to pharmaceutical industry CEOs imploring them to address the vaccine equity crisis.
• Meghan and Harry were among the individuals chosen by the UK-based charity Population Matters to receive the Change Champions award in July 2021 for their choice to have only two children and contribute to the maintenance of a lesser and more sustainable population.
• In the year 2022, the couple had a document series on Netflix. This documentary revealed the events beginning from courtship and ending with their exit from royal life. During the same year, it was discovered that they also extended help to the people affected by the Russian invasion. Moreover, the Archewell Foundation partnered with VING project and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Meghan Markle Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Meghan Markle across 26 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Meghan Markle. Rachel Meghan Markle is a former actress who appeared in several TV series before marrying Prince Harry in 2018 and becoming the Duchess of Sussex.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

1. Meghan Markle Facts
2. The Duchess’ Biography
3. Fact or Bluff
4. Reaction Paper
5. Draw Me a Picture!
6. Guess the Country
7. These Are My Advocacies
8. Accomplishment Timeline
9. Opinion Poll
10. The Best of Her
11. Growing Hearts

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Meghan Markle?

Meghan Markle is a former American actress who became a member of the British royal family upon her marriage to Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, in May 2018. She was born on August 4, 1981, in Los Angeles, California, USA.

What is Meghan Markle’s professional background?

Before becoming a member of the British royal family, Meghan Markle had a successful acting career. She appeared in TV shows like “Suits,” “Fringe,” and “CSI: Miami,” as well as several films. She also worked as a freelance calligrapher and ran her lifestyle blog, The Tig, which focused on food, travel, fashion, and philanthropy.

How did Meghan Markle become a member of the British royal family?

Meghan Markle became a member of the British royal family through her marriage to Prince Harry. The couple met in July 2016 and announced their engagement in November 2017. They were married in a highly publicized royal wedding ceremony at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018.

What are some of Meghan Markle’s roles and responsibilities as a member of the royal family?

As a member of the British royal family, Meghan Markle had various roles and responsibilities, including attending official royal engagements, representing the royal family at public events, and supporting charitable causes. She was also involved in promoting initiatives related to mental health awareness, women’s empowerment, and environmental conservation.

How has Meghan Markle addressed issues related to mental health?

Meghan Markle has been open about her own experiences with mental health challenges and has advocated for mental health awareness and destigmatization. She has spoken publicly about her struggles with anxiety and depression and has emphasized the importance of seeking help and support. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry also launched the “Heads Together” campaign in 2016, along with Prince William and Kate Middleton, to promote mental health awareness and support.

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

<a href="https://kidskonnect.com/people/meghan-markle/">Meghan Markle Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com</a> - KidsKonnect, May 1, 2023

Link will appear as Meghan Markle Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, May 1, 2023