Modern Celebrities With History-Making Ancestors
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- What do Tilda Swinton, Christopher Plummer, and King Princess have in common? They're all celebrities with famous ancestors.
All of the celebs on this list aren't distantly related to notable historical figures - these individuals can actually claim direct descent from at least one historically significant ancestor. Celebrity ancestors include royals, politicians, and artists - in other words, accomplished people who are known outside the context of their famous descendant.
Whether they appeared on a genealogy show - like PBS's Finding Your Roots, African American Lives, or the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? - or grew up hearing about their famous ancestors, these actors, musicians, and personalities are appreciative of their storied backgrounds.
To read about more celebs with history making ancestors, go here:
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#celebrity #family #weirdhistory
My direct ancestor, Nicholaus Kratzer, was the royal astronomer to Henry VIII. He designed the great astronomical clock at Hampton Court Palace.
Also, British actress Anna Chancellor is related to Jane Austen. What a blessing for her to have been in an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice!
Cary Elwes is in so many thing but Robinhood men in Tights should not be forgotten
And Lady Jane, along with another person on this list, Helena Bonham Carter.
my mom's mom was best friends with the daughter of the man who created Claussen pickles. That's my claim to fame.
I'd give a left lung for a Clauson's. I live in England now.
Your grandma.
yes my grandma but I wanted to specify that it was on my mom's side of the family. Nobody else cares but it's important to me.@@charlesxix
Beautiful! We love pickles 😂
I can appreciate that
Kit Harrington being offered the opportunity to lead a Jacobite revolution and restore the House of Stuart as monarchs in the UK
Kit Harrington: I don’t want it
The biggest surprise for me wasn't who was related to who, but that Christopher Lee was a heavy metal musician....that was a shocker!
Through my mom, I have ancestry including Robert The Bruce, Charlemagne, Edward Longshanks, as well as Chief Powhatan. Genealogy is amazing
Wow that’s amazing! X
My family did our genealogy, and it's wild. We have tons of famous relatives and are one of the original settlers who founded New Amsterdam. We even have a family museum in New York City.
That’s really cool. My dad is the genealogist in my family. As he found out I’m (seemingly) distantly related to Budd Abbot, the famous Hollywood slapstick comedian. Apparently he had relatives who were Pennsylvanian Dutch and those relatives are connected to my late maternal grandpa’s family (he was Pennsylvania Dutch). I can believe it because the Pennsylvania Dutch tended to intermarry. Also my paternal grandparents were famous mathematicians. However as far as I can tell there is no connection to Charlemagne (family’s Ashkenazi Jewish).
@@mirandagoldstine8548 Very cool.
I love Abbott and Costello. Our family watched Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein over the holidays.
If you're descended from the Van Den Berghs, then we're distantly related. (Even though Van Den Bergh is basically the Smith of Dutch names.)
@@ashextraordinaire Wyckoff.
That shit is a scam and a racket! Why do you think EVERYONE has someone like that? Not one person's genealogy report says they're a descendant of peasants, but that's the case for most of us. People are gullible.
Tilda Swinton has it right, having ancestors who lived in the same place for a long time and wrote things down is how a person can go deep in their family tree. All but one of my ancestors settled in Wisconsin by 1850 (and the late comer arrived in 1866) so I have a wealth of knowledge. Many came here after several generations in the East Coast and their families were landowners there so again, there is a paper trail with land deeds and wills. The fun fact I like to spout off when discussing family history is that I am related to 5 of the 6 wives of Henry VIII, four by blood and one by marriage. If I looked deep enough I probably can find a connection to Anne of Cleves since so much of European nobility intermarried.
Hi cousin! One of my famous ancestors is Catherine Carey, daughter of Mary Boleyn and maybe daughter of Henry VIII. So we're related somewhere.
@@ChristChickAutistic I also am descended from Catherine Carey! Her daughter Anne Knollys West and granddaughter Joane West White ,who emigrated to Massachusetts in the 1600's with her husband.
My proud family spent a lot of $ in the 80s to get our family genealogy done. Turns out we come from a long line of pirates and sheep stealers.. 😂
We are probably related.
They didn't even touch on Christopher Lee's storied special forces career but y'all should definitely check out their other video on him he lived an insanely interesting life
Don't forget his rock metal music album he made, as a senior citizen! I love this man so much
That video is definitely worth watching!!! He was amazing.
He WAS James Bond. Ian Fleming modeled the character on Chris Lee.
Christopher Lee was a stud.
One of my distant relatives was a hominid who was famous in his tribe for being an inventor and entrepreneur of stick technology.
Sweeeet
an upstanding relative!
🤭
My homo erectus cousin invented rocks
No way...me, too!
The moment I heard that Christopher Lee had made metal albums I jumped on my music app of choice and searched for them and damn they are good. I could easily see myself playing it the background of a dnd session.
My great grandpas twin brother was married to Minnie Pearl, the old lady that always had a tag hanging from her hat
Your great uncle was married to Minnie Pearl?
Of all the notable works you could have used for Helena Bonham Carter, you choose "Fight Club" and "The Crown?"
Exactly my thoughts
There's so many. What would u choose? Wings of the Dove?
WH, you’re such a guy.
@@TheCandiceWangHoward’s End, the Harry Potter series, Sweeney Todd, for starters.
My mom is all in on geneology so she finds a new "notable" every so often. Even if i have no idea who or what their notableness is 😅
I've never seen your channel but I saw the check mark and definitely gonna check out your videos, seems just like the stuff I'm into.
Fancy meeting you here! I’ve followed your channel for years! 😊
My Mum ( mother ) is into genealogy too . Although , I've got two celebrities in the family ( 1 still living ) & both I have had the pleasure & privilege of having life's ups and downs with .
♑️✍️🇳🇴🇦🇺
@@kellyshomemadekitchen thank you
@@raeraebadfingers cheers!
Of course there's also that cool young woman named Drew Barrymore who comes from a long line of actors dating back to the 19th century!
My grandma told me as a kid that she was related to Pocahontas (not me, as my mom is adopted). I started to doubt her once I got older. But not too long ago, I did some research into her family history based on her middle name, Randolph, which was a family name. Turns out that Pocahontas' great-great-granddaughter did indeed marry into the Randolph family. Unfortunately, my research died around there, and I was unable to confirm with certainty that my grandmother came from that particular lineage, as I don't know the names of her parents. But I got close enough to now view her story as plausible. It's very exciting to me.
Allegedly, Wallis, the Duchess of Windsor was also related to Pocahantas. Actress Anne Baxter was the granddaughter of architect Frank LLoyd Wright. Mariel and Margaux were the granddaughters of Ernest Hemingway. Geraldine Chaplin was the daughter of actor Charlie Chaplin and Oona O'Neil, the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill. Tom Hanks is related to the family of Abraham Lincoln's mother. Camilla Parker-Bowles is the great-great granddaughter of Alice Keppel, a mistress of Edward IV. King Charles is descended from Vlad the Impaler of Dracula fame. Princess Diana was a descendent of one of Charles II's mistress. Talk about Six Degrees of Separation, Kevin Bacon is the 37th Great-grandson of Charlemagne. Charlemagne is the common ancestor of every English monarch from Hardicanute to now, with the exception of Harold II who reigned in 1066 before being defeated by William the Conqueror in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings.
My grandma told me I am related to captain John Smith I saw his name in my family book once
The name Randolph is akin to royalty in Virginia. It is one of the oldest and most respected names in the Old Dominion.
My 8th great aunt is Kerenhappuch Norman, who is a legit badass. I definitely recommend reading about her. She took part in the Revolutionary War in her 50s and 60s as a courier of letters between the American forces. But she's most known for the time her son and grandson got gravely wounded in a battle, and she, a 50-60-year-old, rode a horse through hostile territory to provide aid. Apparently, she found her grandson on the Guilford battlefield and nursed him back to health. She rigged a bucket of water from the rafters of a cabin to allow water to drip on her relative's wound to eliminate infection. She went on to organize the hospital corps. I also got two 12 great-grandfathers from the Mayflower. Christopher Jones and Constance Hopkins.
Found out that one of my cousins on my mom’s side was found strangled in her kitchen in the 1950s. The case was never solved either.
Reese Witherspoon is a descendant of Founding Father John Witherspoon through one of his cousins.
My grandma’s cousins were The Beach Boys, I still have old photo albums of them together
That is really cool!! I love their music!
My Grama's mother's came up the Mississippi river as a child with her family from France with Daniel Boone. To settle Missouri before it was a state. 😊
Smiling with a beer is as southern as it gets 🤠🍻
@@luckyy3691 Thank you
Well now I'm just wondering who the singing raccoon is related to.... s'gotta be a heckuva story there.
😅 ( 2nd like )
That was awesome 💯
Rocket
The actor Clancy Brown's (real name Clarence Brown III) father and grandfather (who had the same name as him) were both members of the U.S. House of Representatives for a combined 44 years (1939-1983) from the same district in Ohio. The day this video was released just so happens to be Clancy Brown's 65th birthday (which I did not know before I started writing this comment).
Unless a person's lived under a rock since 1999, then chances are they know Clancy Brown as Spongebob's cheapskate boss, Mr. Krabs
Clancy was my bartender in Chicago for a couple of years a few decades ago. 😁 (A place called Fiddler's Green at Clark and Devon...)
I've never heard of most of these people or their ancestors. Which is fine because none of them have ever heard of me either.
I knew Plummer was in the Sound of Music but I've never actually watched it since I was really young. I'm not a musical guy. But it adds a lot to his character in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
It’s funny how once you get used to a particular voice/narrator no one else will do 😉
It’s like hearing a song by a certain artist and then you hear the song by someone else and it’s just not the same.
Brian Forster of the Partridge family who played the youngest boy in the family, his direct great great, great, great grandfather is Charles Dickens the author
I'm surprised any of Dickens children admitted to being his children. He was a horrible father and treated his children atrociously.
@@Facetiously.Esoteric if William Shakespeare was a bastard as well., I’m sure people would still claim descent because of the magnitude of his work of literature
My grandfather spent the last 30 years of her life researching our genealogy.
I don't have any ancestors who would be household names, but with all the stories collected they are real people to me, not just names on a family tree. The women were not queens or anyone considered important or notable. But they were all strong, independently minded, and a little eccentric. There's even a horse thief in there. And we have lots and lots of photographs.
It's disconcerting to look at a photo of someone who lived and died in a century different from the one I was born in and yet, could be my identical twin.
i really DO have a notable ancestor, though i keep forgetting if he's actually a blood relative or related by marriage, and "famous" is kinda stretching it--he has a Wikipedia page, at least :P his name was Thomas Tibbles; he was an advocate for indigenous American rights in the late 19th and early 20th century, and was a third-party vice-presidential candidate in the 1904 election
I have a "Wikipedia ancestor," too. He was a Scottish guy who got banished to mainland Europe for being the wrong Christian denomination....
My grandfather was literally one of the first men that stormed the beach on D-day
Sir Christopher Lee. An amazing axror of voth acreen and stage, who loved his country, and family.
And enough of a badass to know how humnle, gentle, and kind. A man I regret not getting to meet. Everyone he worked with in the prequels, and LOTR spoke highly of him.
He'd my hero 🥰🙏🏼 Lord bless him. I miss him every day! How are u related? Many British folk are related to each other some generations back far enough
I am (supposedly) descended directly from Samurai on my Mom's side. That, and $5 today, will buy me a cup of coffee.
I'd have more faith in the story if there was a sword or knife in the family, but my grandparents were poor dirt farmers. No blade for me, lol!
0:51 I mentioned Fight Club yesterday to someone that graduated high school in 1999!
Such a great film!
Sir Christopher Lee was/is nothing less than a legend!
Luciferian
@@mamazannie6060- He may be one amongst many vips. And nobody here seems to wonder why so many celebs are relatives of royals and politicians.
According to genealogists, all persons of European descent that live nowadays descend of every living fertile citizen from Charlemagne’s era…Including Charlemagne himself. As for me, my great great aunt was the first female mayor in South America, Aurora Mesa Andraca. Our Mesa ancestor was a companion of Hernan Cortes.
3:31 I am going to watch Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) tonight!
Very excited, the first Knives Out film was amazing!
My great grandfather was a baker and once sold bread to the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. He was also against the dictatorship at the time, but he didn't know who he was selling the bread. That is my only known link to someone famous :')
10:43 Christopher Lee plays Lord Summerisle on the fantastic film The Wicker Man (1973).
I think about that film often!
We just gonna act like Helena isn’t known for Harry Potter
8:45 The Biltmore Estate is trademarked as America's Largest Home.
I would love to stay there!
I like how Europeans and Asians are more related to monarchs and other royals , Americans are more related to politicians and busniessmen
Christopher Lee was the step cousin of Ian Fleming
I have a great grandpa that was the personal driver for a us president. But my grandmother can’t remember which president. lol.
I’ve been working on my family tree for about 5 yrs now and am back to the 1200s on both sides and it is absolutely amazing all of the well known royals and other famous people that are on my tree. The first thing I learned was if you’re related to one European royal, you’re related to all of the royal families bcz of their tendency to marry only into other European royal families. William Bradford of Mayflower fame as well as being the first governor of Plymouth Colony is my 8th great grandfather. Mary Queen of Scots is my 13th great grandmother, Henry Vlll is my 14th GG, I could go on and on. Everyone should build their family tree as far back as possible. The findings are amazing!
How are you related to Henry VIII? All his children died and they didn’t have children.
Cool! Yes, you'd be related to all of them😅
@@vegetariansuniteworldwide8091 Incorrect.
@@vegetariansuniteworldwide8091
Through his sisters actually Mary and Margaret Tudor. I goofed and said great grandfather, he was actually my 14th great UNCLE.
@@vegetariansuniteworldwide8091
But his father Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth York are my 15GG
When "Hulk" is the descendant of Pocahontas....
My Afi (Icelandic for grandfather) claimed they the Icelandic family are direct descended of Eric The Red. We plan on going to Iceland and will check this claim. Figures are crossed that my Afi was right.
Please Bring Back Timeline!
Amen 🙏
England in 1605 was predominantly Catholic, it was overwhelming protestant from the mid to late 16th century onwards
I'm related to the French aristocracy before the revolution then they moved to Austria...
Also my grandmother was a prison guard at a maximum security prison she was badass I miss her chocolate eclairs
( 1st like to your comment ) . I used to go to school with someone who said they're descended from French royalty ( I remember his surname " Berry-Porter " , I'm very much different now than I was in class ) . Your prison guard grandmother would have had some very interesting stories to tell about her working days , I'm sure . ♑️✍️🇳🇴🇦🇺
My grandmother’s maiden name was Lavallee. Going back far enough Calixa Lavallee was a music composer who wrote the Canadian national anthem.
I’m related to Edward Doty, who was an indentured servant of Stephen Hopkins, who came to the New World on the ship, The Mayflower. My ancestor was one of two men to be punished in the New Colony for getting into a fist fight. 😊
Nice 🙃
6:36 The inspiration for the Tiny Tim character I performed as came partly from a conversation I had with a coworker (who thought that Tiny Tim was an unbelievable character) and partly from the Tiny Tim character in the film Scrooged (1988).
Great video keep it up you're doing amazing things 😁👍
6:58 In the film A Castle for Christmas (2021), Cary Elwes played Myles, 12th Duke of Dunbar.
Great film!
Christopher Lee was also distantly related to Confederate General Robert E. Lee
I think Charlemagne's exhibits at any museum should note, "Emperor Charlemagne, direct ancestor the world's most interesting man, Christopher Lee" going forward.
Christopher Lee once said he was related to General Robert E Lee. Although he sadly never elaborated any further on that subject, I believe him. They both share the same surname, and they look very similar to each other. You could be fooled into thinking that they’re the same person
I just watched one of those shorts where they proved that R E Lee connection.
Interesting. My family is also related to Robert E Lee, and we have the same surname.
He was a cousin of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, I think by marriage of someone in his family and got to play one of his cousin's villains Scaramanger in The Man With The Golden Gun.
@@julianaylor4351Ian modeled Bond on Chris. He was Bond, James Bond. 😂
0:54 Helena Bonham Carter plays the anarchist Eudoria Holmes in the film Enola Holmes (2020).
A+ video!
LOVE IT Such a fascinating topic and awesome celebrities!
Btw, i’m 36 and my great Uncles were born between 1900ish and the 1940s. It would have to be like my Great Great Great Uncle to be an Abe contemporary.
This says “be careful WHO YOU shack up with ! “
Could be your distant cousin 😂😂😂😂😂
1:43 Tilda Swinton was fantastic as the White Witch in the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).
That film was #1 at the box office on my 26th birthday.
Who cares?
@@mamazannie6060 You need to go to a library and talk to the librarien if you haven't heard of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
My great grandmother was a Delano. We are related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and somehow, very distantly the Bush family
OMG!! The Norton-Pocohantas was SHOCKING!!
I'm related to a famous guy who unfortunately ate a apple. His name was Adam..😂😂😂
I'm related to him, too! And, his wife 😂😊 🍎🐍
Whew, thank goodness, listening to you and watching this felt really good.
It is incredible thay so many generations later there are physical similarities still between a lot of modern day people and their ancestors. 😮
Yeah , they should have made an appearance somewhere in a starring role within the Back To The Future franchise . ♑️✍️🇳🇴🇦🇺
I’m related to the first person to row across the Atlantic Ocean, his name was John Fairfax
4:29 Speaking of "Colors of the Wind"...Vanessa Williams is one of my favorite musical artists.
The song "Love Is" by Brian McKnight and her is on the Bevely Hills 90210 soundtrack.
Some of my ancestors are David Crockett, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Priscilla Mullins, and a pirate called Jan Janszoon
Through my dads mom, I am related to the last surviving confederate soldier. My mom’s mom’s father (my great grandfather), was friends with and shared the same profession as the family from the Lawless movie the Bondurant’s. They lived in the same county and ran in the same bootlegger circles.
My step grandma's mother and father were friends with them.
@@treblanco101 That’s cool man. Small world. Good chance my great grandfather and my grandma knew your relatives then. That movie was surreal to me though because it was exactly like what my grandma described it as.. said all the stills in the mountains made them light up like Christmas trees.. my jaw hit the floor when they said exactly that in the movie because I remembered my grandma telling me about it when I was a little kid in the 90’s.
I used to live in southern TN, when there was a famous murder trial involving a particularly notorious pair of twins named Pete and Pat Bondurant. What are the odds they're the same family?
Their parents were not from the area they lived in, in Giles County, TN.
So yOur families are from SW Virginia
@robinhuggett629 yeah my dad's side is from Franklin County
I always love stuff like this it's so fascinating to discover the roots of people whether or not they are famous to me at the same time it's mind-blowing the people who are famous and the famous people they are connected to I love this channel
I'm a decendant of the Ogle family, and related to Long Shanks.
I just found out that William the conqueror is my ancestor. I'm viking, Scottish, and French🔥
#1 rule never talk about fight club
3:22 We watched a lot of Edward Norton films in college.
I used to have American History X on VHS.
Wouldn't it be funny if Edward Norton was related to Art Carney?
@@markcadieux3445 That would be a real mind bender!
No surprises in this video. Everyone has someone famous in their ancestry. We have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, 16 great-great, 32, 64, 128, 246, etc. By the time you’re back to your tenth-great-grandparents, you could have around 8,000 ancestors. The further back you go, the more ancestors. This is why all Europeans are probably descended from Charlemagne.
Exactly! And DNA tests can only go back only a few generations but can give some hints for going farther back. When it comes down to it with the math this person just did, we are all going to be related sometime. Just remember that our ancestors had to be strong people to have survived through wars, pestilence, etc. so thst we can be here having this discussion. If my grandfather had chosen his Harley back in 1917 over my grandmother, I wouldn’t be here😀😀😀. And I have a picture of him and an unknown lady on his Harley! Wish I knew who she was!!!
I'm not surprised that many celebrities have famous ancestors, I meen... nepotism 🤷♀️
1. You keep forgetting that actor Timothy Oliphant is also a Vanderbilt descendant.
2. Rose Leslie also has Mexican ancestry. Through her father, she's the great-great-granddaughter of former Mexico City governor, Guillermo Landa y Escandón. This man's mother, Maria Francisca Escandón Garmendia (Leslie's great-great-great-grandmother) was a lady-in-waiting to Empress Charlotte of Mexico. In fact, when Don Guillermo's daughter, Maria De La Luz Landa, married her second husband, Douglas Arbunoth-Leslie, Don Guillermo bought Lickyhead Castle for them as a wedding gift. Lickyhead Castle is the place where Rose lived in her youth.
You would think they would've changed the name of the castle.
Did y'all see how Anderson Cooper looked a bit like Cornelius Vanderbilt? Wow!
5:35 There needs to be Guy Fawkes Day in the US, it's such a fascinating holiday!
Its not a holiday in the UK. It's just a day we remember remember the 5th of November by building bon fires and making effigies to go on top the set it alight whilst firing rockets and fireworks into the sky. We eat bonfire and treacle toffee and parkin cake, whilst baking potatoes in the bonfire 🔥
@@kidcreole9421 You are just making it up, no one celebrates an event at the same time every year and then tries to convince outsiders it's not a holiday.
@@btetschner we simply do not call it a holiday. A holiday is when you go away somewhere. As Brits we do not call a day in history a holiday. We observe it. Your concept as an American is different to us Brits.
As an American why would you want a Guy Fawkes day that isn't connected to your history as a sovereign country. Guy Fawkes night is only celebrated by British Protestants for fouling the plot by the Catholics to kill King James l and to put a Catholic King or Queen back onto the throne.
@@kidcreole9421 "Your concept as an American is different to us Brits." - You are aware there is a difference in how holidays are defined between the cultures. We can agree that you are being dishonest, likely for the sake of getting attention.
I watch videos (and communicate) TWICE A DAY with someone who lived in Britain the first 18+ years of his life and he considers it a holiday.
Happy New Year to our favorite narrator!
My grandfather's uncle researched the family lineage, as well as was possible in the pre-war 20th century. The most interesting thing he reported, was that a multi-great aunt was snatched from a river bank in pre-revolution western Virginia by native Americans. Several years later she returned to the family with her son, who, according to the family history, grew up to be the great chieftain, Tecumseh. I really want to believe that he is a long lost cousin of mine, but the family timeline for his birth is off from multiple historical timelines by ten years.
9:07 I watched Miracle On 34th Street (1947) as the first film I watched on Christmas Day.
Macy's played a significant role in the film!
I’m white, so I can vouch for this. I know my people. Aside from naming our kids shit like Kessler and Bracken, if you put enough of us in a room, like two dozen eventually the conversation will turn to whose family was on the Mayflower.
Not even me but my grandma's half siblings were related to a notorious horse thief.
You are back!!❤❤❤
My husband and i just found your channel & really enjoy your videos!
The background music is a Little too loud for us to hear the dialogue though.. & RUclips subtitles aren't very reliable.
Just some friendly feedback!
Apparently my great uncle Neil invented the modern traffic light.
Black guy invented that
@@quitcallinmebill1699 yesss Garret Morgan!! But idk i heard my distant uncle had something to do with modern LED lights….
Also could be a complete lie 😂
11:16 The golden gun!
Everyone that has played 4-Player Golden Eye on the N64 knows about that!
Well, this made Finding Your Roots feel like Alice in Wonderland by comparison.
i never knew anderson cooper had a rich ancestor
and
same with rez ahmed too wow
My great-grandmother was on the Times magazine cover got the height of the space race. Cora "Blue"Davis.
i'm allegedly a descendant of alexander graham bell through my maternal grandmother!
I don't know if you guys have a video of Richard Simmons but if you guys don't then I think it would be a great idea to make one about him. 😊
I'm a direct descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence & a Salam Witch Trial judge.
Yesterday i found out im related to mo ibrahim, pretty awesome!
All grandparents make history we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them