Finding your roots can come with awkward revelations. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most embarrassing and unsettling ancestral discoveries celebrities made on the genealogy documentary series “Finding Your Roots."
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00:00So, when someone asks you, Viola Davis, who are your people?
00:03Where do you come from? What do you say?
00:05Welcome to MsMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most
00:10embarrassing and unsettling ancestral discoveries
00:14celebrities made on the genealogy documentary series Finding Your Roots.
00:19So, I'm trying to figure this out here with what I know my family heritage is not adding up here.
00:24Number 10, Laura Linney's felonious ancestors
00:28When it, guess what? I wouldn't know. What did he do?
00:32You might be familiar with the British practice of sending convicts to Australia
00:37during the 18th and 19th centuries, but did you know that before Australia,
00:42the primary destination for British prisoners was actually America?
00:46Transportation of convicts to the American colonies in the 18th century
00:50was a way for England to rid the country of criminals without killing them.
00:54If this fact didn't come as a surprise to you,
00:57it definitely did for award-winning actress Laura Linney.
01:01When she appeared on the show in 2019, Linney discovered that her fifth great-grandfather,
01:07William Linney, had been convicted in England of receiving stolen goods
01:11and was transported to Virginia in 1768.
01:15Well knowing them to have been stolen, the justice said,
01:18Mr. Linney, you hear what the lad has said, have you anything to say?
01:23Linney said, no, I own, I had the goods.
01:26Probably not the most flattering information to learn about one's ancestors,
01:31but Linney took it in stride with a hearty laugh.
01:34That is a passenger list from the ship on which your ancestors sailed from 1768.
01:39Holy mackerel, felons transported from London to Virginia by the Neptune.
01:45Number 9, Soledad O'Brien's ancestor falls on hard times
01:50Laura Linney was not the only celebrity to uncover their ancestor's criminal background.
01:56I didn't realize on the Whiteman side, which by the way nobody talks about,
01:59and now I know why, because they also ran things like scams.
02:04In another episode, veteran broadcast journalist Soledad O'Brien was also hit
02:09with a mortifying revelation about her third great-grandmother, Lilius Whiteman.
02:15Host Henry Louis Gates Jr. presented O'Brien with a prisoner register from 19th century Scotland,
02:22revealing that a 41-year-old Whiteman had been arrested for robbery alongside a group of teenage
02:27boys.
02:28And in receipt of said theft.
02:30So she was handling stolen goods.
02:32It soon became clear that Whiteman might have been leading a gang of young thieves in Edinburgh,
02:38Scotland.
02:38This theory seemed to embarrass O'Brien initially,
02:42but when they dug deeper into the actual reason why Whiteman resorted to crime,
02:46her perspective changed.
02:48So her husband died at age 39.
02:50Yeah, the death of her husband, the breadwinner,
02:53was probably what pushed Lilius and William into the life of petty larceny.
02:59That's really sad.
03:00They were stealing to survive.
03:02Number 8, Not Julia Roberts
03:04The name Julia Roberts is instantly recognizable to millions around the world.
03:10But what if we told you it's actually not her biological name?
03:14Is my head on straight still? Am I facing you?
03:17The Oscar-winning actress derived her surname from Willis Roberts,
03:21her supposed great-great-grandfather.
03:24However, genealogical research uncovered a discrepancy.
03:28Julia's great-grandfather, John, was born more than a decade after Willis passed away.
03:34This meant that the actress couldn't be biologically related to Willis Roberts.
03:39We scoured Douglas County looking for any record that named John's father,
03:44and we found absolutely nothing.
03:46Through DNA analysis, the show eventually traced her ancestry
03:50to a man named Henry MacDonald Mitchell Jr.,
03:54a married man who lived only a few miles away from Willis's wife, Rhoda.
03:59A few short miles.
04:03And get this, according to the same census,
04:06Henry's widowed mother, Elizabeth Mitchell, lived just four households from Rhoda.
04:14Wow.
04:14Despite the biological inaccuracy,
04:17we still think Julia Roberts has a much better ring to it than Julia Mitchell.
04:22Number 7, Issa Rae's Free Ancestors
04:26If they were named, would they be free?
04:28The Charbonnays were free.
04:31How did they get away with that?
04:33During the era of slavery, people who were enslaved were typically omitted from census records.
04:39However, during her appearance on Finding Your Roots in 2021,
04:44actress and producer Issa Rae discovered documents
04:47that identified her third great-grandfather, Dawson Charbonnet, by name.
04:52This was due to the fact that Charbonnet's mother,
04:55Milit, had been granted freedom by her owner, who also happened to be a black man.
05:00So you just blew my mind even more.
05:04So they were owned by...
05:07Another black person.
05:10Slavery was a very complicated institution.
05:12Yes, it was.
05:14Additionally, Rae learned that Charbonnet's father was a white man who had his own family,
05:19but engaged in a clandestine relationship with Milit.
05:23If this all felt like a convoluted television B-plot,
05:27then you're not alone.
05:29Even Rae shared the same sentiments.
05:31This is so...
05:34It's like he just took me through a soap opera, like a slave soap opera.
05:40Wow. That is some twisted family history.
05:44Number six, Gayle King's European ancestry.
05:47I knew her father was white, that her mother was black,
05:50but we were not to talk about it, and she never wanted to talk about it.
05:55Gayle King's family harbored a long-held secret
05:58concerning her maternal grandmother, Emma Brown.
06:01It was revealed that Brown was the product of a white father and a black mother,
06:06a fact seemingly concealed out of shame, at least according to King.
06:10What was his ethnicity?
06:12White man.
06:13Just white man?
06:16White man.
06:16Not from Germany, England, Ireland?
06:19No, white man.
06:19White man, okay.
06:20White man, and do not ask her about her father.
06:23The genealogists at Finding Your Roots were able to trace King's ancestry
06:27back to Robert Elliot Copes, a white man from South Carolina, and Emma Brown's grandfather.
06:34This discovery unveiled King's European ancestry,
06:37which comprises over 30% of her genetic makeup.
06:41However, when the results of this DNA analysis were revealed to her at the end of the episode,
06:46King didn't seem to be very pleased with them.
06:49You are one third white.
06:52Take that back.
06:53Number 5.
06:54Angela Davis descended from white settlers.
06:58You'd be shocked to learn what some of your ancestors were up to.
07:02That probably should be the tagline for Finding Your Roots.
07:06In 2023, the show delivered yet another jaw-dropping revelation,
07:10this time to political activist Angela Davis.
07:14Any idea what you're looking at?
07:16That is a list of the passengers on the Mayflower.
07:20No, I can't believe this.
07:22No, my ancestors did not come here on the Mayflower.
07:26Throughout her lengthy career, Davis gained a fierce reputation for her
07:31unwavering advocacy for civil rights, as well as her relentless fight against structural racism.
07:37Hence, she was taken aback to learn that her ancestors were the complete opposite.
07:46That's a little bit too much to deal with right now.
07:50Davis was revealed to be a direct descendant of William Brewster,
07:54one of the 102 settlers who journeyed to the colonies on the Mayflower.
07:59Just goes to show that despite sharing bloodlines,
08:03people can still differ greatly from their ancestors.
08:07Did you ever, in your wildest dreams,
08:09think that you may have descended from people who laid...
08:13Never.
08:13...the foundation...
08:14Never.
08:15...for this country?
08:16Never, never.
08:17Number 4.
08:18George R. R. Martin's Grandmother's Affair
08:21When George R. R. Martin appeared on Finding Your Roots in 2019,
08:26he uncovered a surprising family tale reminiscent of the sordid ones in his epic fantasy books.
08:33Spent much of his childhood in the home of his beloved grandmother,
08:37Grace Martin. But George knew almost nothing about his grandfather, Grace's husband, Lewis Martin.
08:46Martin had always believed that his Italian paternal grandfather, Lewis,
08:50had abandoned his grandmother, Grace, for a younger woman.
08:54However, that notion was shattered when the show's team revealed the results of Martin's DNA test.
09:00What's missing from that chart?
09:02The Italians.
09:03The Italians. There's no Italian.
09:06Okay, that's shocking.
09:08Martin's DNA showed a quarter Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry,
09:12suggesting his true grandfather was Jewish.
09:16It was quickly surmised that it was Grace who likely cheated on Lewis,
09:20which eventually pushed him away.
09:23I've often thought of writing a book about, you know, that house, you know.
09:28Yeah.
09:28I haven't even told half the stories yet of some of the people who lived there at various points.
09:32That book just got more complicated.
09:34Oh, we fully expect the next book to be chaotic.
09:39Number three, the identity of Viola Davis's great-grandfather.
09:44Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis came on Finding Your Roots expecting to learn more
09:48about her ancestry, but she probably wasn't ready for the messy familial secrets she would uncover.
09:55Did your mom ever talk about this?
09:57Never.
09:58Isn't that interesting? That silence?
10:01Silence is always interesting to me.
10:03Davis learned that her grandfather, Henry Logan, had a mysterious lineage.
10:08In official documents, two different men had been listed as his father,
10:13Gable Logan on his social security application and John Young on his obituary.
10:24Although Henry's mother, Corinne, was married to Gable,
10:27historical records showed that after he came back from World War I,
10:31Gable never returned to live with Corinne.
10:34Through DNA analysis and census data, researchers inferred that Corinne
10:39likely had an affair with her neighbor, John Young, resulted in the birth of Davis's grandfather.
10:45It's the mess of relationships and the mess of, you know, love, sex.
10:54It's truth.
10:54Number two, Katherine Hahn's ancestors moved from Germany to America.
11:00Our forefathers often relocated to different countries for various reasons,
11:05economic prospects, fleeing conflict, or in the case of Katherine Hahn's ancestor,
11:11eloping with their lover at the expense of family ties.
11:15That is so complicated.
11:17Well, one thing you should know that you don't have to worry about in the guilt chart.
11:21No guilt, just like, what?
11:23In 1853, Hahn's third great-grandfather, Wilhelm Lunenschloss,
11:28was living in Germany with his wife and six children.
11:32However, by 1860, Wilhelm had moved to Wisconsin, now married to a different woman named Eliza.
11:39The Finding Your Roots team dug deeper into this significant change.
11:44On the right, you can see the name of the man who lived at Ehrenstrasse 48.
11:50Just a few doors down, could you read his surname?
11:53Anton Ternes.
11:55And whose surname was Ternes?
11:57Hers.
11:57Through a German city directory from 1854,
12:00they found that Eliza was the daughter of Wilhelm's neighbor.
12:05This suggests that Wilhelm met Eliza there in Germany,
12:08then abandoned his family to start a new one with her in America.
12:14The fact that that had to happen for this to happen is-
12:17You are the product of the scandal.
12:19I know.
12:20You are the end result.
12:21Isn't that nuts?
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12:38Number 1.
12:39Niecy Nash learns who her grandfather is
12:42Hollywood actress Niecy Nash was in for a rude shock
12:46when she appeared on the ninth season of Finding Your Roots.
12:50Turns out that the man Nash had always believed to be her paternal grandfather
12:55actually wasn't.
12:56I was in a state of shock.
12:59I think I said,
13:00I said, what now?
13:04What exactly does that mean?
13:08And then I realized what you were saying.
13:11Naturally, this was an incredibly surprising revelation for the actress,
13:16who now faced the challenging task of breaking this news to her father,
13:20Researchers on the show used Nash's DNA, along with that of a second cousin,
13:25to uncover the identity of her biological grandfather, a man named Frank Jackson.
13:31What's it like to see this?
13:33So many things are going on in my mind right now.
13:35I'm like, I wonder if my father ever met him or if he ever knew him in his life.
13:43So how did this discrepancy occur?
13:45Well, that's the complicated part.
13:48Jackson actually lived very close to Nash's grandmother in St. Louis,
13:52so it's believed the two had an affair, which ultimately produced Nash's father.
13:58To where Mr. Jackson lived.
13:59So Mr. Jackson came around to the house a time or two
14:03while she was already married to Arthur.
14:05Well, we don't know if he came to the house or she came to his house.
14:08But they met on up.
14:10What scandalous tales exist in your family?
14:13Why don't you spill some secrets in the comments section below?
14:17I mean, what a thing to take to the grave.