Julia Roberts Learns She Isn't Actually a 'Roberts' After DNA Test: 'My Mind is Blown' 



Julia Moore is simply a virtual quality writer astatine PEOPLE. She precocious received a Bachelor's successful in Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and has been an avid PEOPLE scholar for years.

Julia Roberts isn't who she thought she changed into.

The Oscar-winner appeared connected PBS' Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. On Wednesday, and was near speechless via a hidden centuries-old mystery.

After studying Roberts' household tree, Gates Jr. Observed that the idiosyncratic who became supposedly her high-quality-incredible-grandfather, Willis Roberts, truely died much than a decennary earlier her archetypal rate-grandfather changed into born.

While her superb-top notch-grandmother Rhoda Suttle Roberts had been joined to Willis due to the fact that the 1850s, his dying successful 1864 near a startling gap.

"Oh, hold — nevertheless americium I not a Roberts?" the Ticket to Paradise superstar requested arsenic Gates Jr. Walked her via his findings.

Gates Jr. Then defined that nationalist databases arsenic an alternate located "a clump of suits" that traced Roberts, 55, to a antheral known arsenic Henry McDonald Mitchell Jr.

"So we are Mitchell's?" Roberts asked.

"You're Julia Mitchell," Gates Jr. Confirmed arsenic she laughed. "You are not a Roberts, biologically."

To marque topics adjacent other startling, the historiographer introduced that Mitchell had been joined connected the clip of his matter with Roberts' exceptional-splendid-grandmother Rhoda and had six of his idiosyncratic youngsters.

Through painstaking probe of census statistics, helium additionally recovered that Mitchell's mother, a widow, lived "simply 4 families" faraway from Rhoda.

"Wow," is each Roberts could power to accidental arsenic Gates Jr. Illuminated her authentic household records till helium asked her however she felt astir her newfound ancestry.

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"On the 1 hand, I — intelligibly — my caput is blown," Roberts stated. "And it's acold charming. And however, determination is portion of maine that, erstwhile I'm calmer, tin nevertheless wrapper my palms crossed the thought that my household is my ellipse of relatives. And I bash similar the telephone Roberts!"

"This changed into a wholly unexpected flip," she brought arsenic Gates Jr. Wrapped up his findings, telling her that Mitchell Jr. Reputedly disappeared from the insubstantial way successful the precocious 1800s. His and Roberts' newfound ancestors, however, whitethorn beryllium traced each of the mode little backmost to 18th-century assemblage Virginia.

Roberts' ellipse of relatives ungraded is the modern revelation astatine the show. On Jan. Four Edward Norton featured connected the PBS show's premier occurrence and became informed that 17th-century Powhatan miss Pocahontas is his 12th exquisite-grandmother.

Gates. Jr. Discovered that Norton's ancestry — which includes a Civil War worker who wrote to Abraham Lincoln and a overdue nineteenth-century seasoned-union labour activistic — whitethorn beryllium traced instantly returned to the earliest days of assemblage America successful Virginia, whilst Pocahontas joined English settler John Rolfe successful 1614.

The historiographer besides recovered retired that Norton and Roberts percent a comparable capable DNA series to find they proportionality a commonplace ancestor — quality that near some actors laughing with marvel. "How travel I did not get the enamel and the smile?" Norton joked.

The implicit occurrence of Finding Your Roots tin beryllium observed connected PBS' website.