Name: Top 20 Most Surprising Celebrity Discoveries on Finding Your Roots
Uploaded: 2025-11-26T17:00:12.000Z
Duration: 24 min 19 s
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And today we're counting down our picks for the most sensational moments from Finding youg Roots, where celebrities uncovered shocking truths about their ancestry.

Even weeks later, Jo was still trying to process the news.

Carly Simon all her life, singer songwriter Carly Simon believed that her maternal grandmother, Ophelia Oliete, who immigrated to the US from Cuba, had Spanish and Moroccan roots.

In 2017, Simon decided to dig deeper into her grandmother's ancestry, suspecting there was more to the story.

She always wanted to remain completely private.

She never shared any of her past with us.

The Finding your Roots researchers traveled down to Cuba, where they sifted through Catholic church documents and uncovered a surprising truth.

This is why she be said you'll find nothing because she couldn't find anything she couldn't find.

Simon's grandmother was actually 40% black and likely downplayed that heritage to avoid discrimination during the Jim Crow era.

As a result, Simon discovered that she herself is 10% black, a revelation that left her genuinely stunned and eager to share with the rest of her family.

We have never tested a white person as black as you.

Can't wait to call my sisters and my brother and tell them this number.

Dionne Warwick Although she grew up in New Jersey, Dionne Warwick always knew her roots traced back to Georgia.

The story of how her family ended up in New Jersey, however, remained a mystery until she appeared on the show in 2024.

Warwick learned that her great, great grandfather, John Dr. Drankard Sr.

Owned a farm in Georgia in the early 1900s, likely growing cotton.

This was a rare feat at a time when most black farmers were stuck in the cycle of sharecropping.

But when a beetle infestation ravaged Georgia in the early 1920s and a bank loan went south, Warwick's grandfather, Nicholas Drinkard, was forced to sell the farm and move to Newark.

There, he formed a gospel singing group, setting the stage for Warwick's future stardom.

He had a voice that was angelic, and he knew his children could sing.

Questlove the episode featuring Roots drummer and joint frontman Questlove, was more than just a deep dive into his ancestry.

It also unveiled a surprising connection to a picture pivotal chapter in American history.

Amir Thompson, better known as Questlove has one of the most astonishing stories we've ever recovered.

Although the international slave trade was officially banned in the US in 1807, illegal smuggling persisted for years.

The last known ship to bring captives from Africa to the US was Clotilda, which illegally transported 110 people from what is now the Republic of Benin.

I'm on the absolute last ship that ever came here.

Through finding your roots, Questlove discovered that his great, great great grandparents, Charles and Maggie Lewis, were among those smuggled on Clotilda.

Seeing a picture of Charles Lewis was so overwhelming for Questlove that it moved him to tears.

I didn't know who I was or who I came from.

Imagine going through life only to discover you've been rocking the wrong surname the whole time.

That's exactly what happened to Julia Roberts.

The story begins with her great grandfather, John Roberts and with his mother, a woman named Rhoda Suttle.

On the show, Roberts uncovered a family secret involving her great grandfather, John Roberts.

An 1880 census listed a two year old John living with his siblings and mother, Rhoda Suttle.

But there was no mention of Rhoda's husband, Willis Roberts.

That's because Willis died over a decade prior.

Julia Willis Roberts could not possibly be your great, great grandfather.

A deeper dive into the family's DNA revealed John's true father was a married man named Henry McDonald Mitchell Jr. Who likely had an affair with Rhoda.

So technically, Robert's actual name should be Julia Mitchell, which, let's be honest, just doesn't have the same ring to it.

From a young age, comedian Andy Samberg's mother, Margie knew she was adopted.

But uncovering the identity of her biological parents proved difficult.

Even a private detective hired by the family came up empty handed.

So Sandberg enlisted Henry Louis Gates Jr. To help crack the case.

It's something that I really wished for my mother because I know that it would be something to.

To give her piece about it, just to know.

Using historical records and vague descriptions from the adoption agency, they zeroed in on a woman named Ellen Phillipsbourne.

To confirm the connection, they tracked down Phillips Bourne's niece and compared her DNA to Margie's, which turned out to be a match.

Your mother and Renata's daughter share about 13.5% of their DNA, which puts them solidly in the range of first cousins.

They were also able to identify Margie's father, a sailor named Salvatore Maida.

Interestingly, Phillips Bourne got pregnant while studying child psychology at UC Berkeley and shared Margie's passion for working with children.

My mom is someone that always everyone describes as like a child whisperer, that she just knows how to deal with kids.

It's the thing she was drawn to to her, inexplicably.

The ninth season premiere of Finding youg Roots didn't just drop a bombshell about Julia Roberts.

It also unearthed some surprising facts about fellow actor Edward Norton.

I'm fascinated by the idea of roots, the idea of what drives people to leave one place and go to another.

To start, Norton found out he is actually distantly related to Roberts.

He also discovered that Pocahontas is his 12th great grandmother, confirming a family legend he had heard his entire life.

Pocahontas is indeed your 12th great grandma.

However, the journey through Norton's ancestry wasn't all rosy.

An 1850 North Carolina census revealed that his third great grandfather, John Winston, owned enslaved people, some of whom were children.

It was a sobering moment for the actor, who acknowledged it not as a judgment on his own life, but an uncomfortable truth that must be contended with.

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Top 20 Most Surprising Celebrity Discoveries on Finding Your Roots

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