Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading on 9 January 1982 into an upper-middle-class family. She was baptised at St Andrew's Bradfield, a local parish church, on 20 June 1982. She is the eldest of three children born to Michael Middleton (b. 1949) and his wife, Carole (née Goldsmith; b. 1955), a former flight dispatcher and flight attendant, respectively, who in 1987 founded Party Pieces, a privately held mail order company that sells party supplies and decorations with an estimated worth of £30 million. Her father's family has ties to British aristocracy and benefited financially from trust funds which they established over 100 years ago.