American actor Edward Norton has discovered that the real-life Pocahontas is his 12th great-grandmother.
The Oscar-nominated star learned of his family connection to the woman who married Virginia settler John Rolfe on Tuesday’s episode of the PBS genealogical history show “Finding Your Roots.” Historian and host Henry Louis Gates Jr. confirmed the longstanding family rumor to be fact, telling Norton: “You have a direct paper trail, no doubt about it, connection to your 12th great-grandmother and great-grandfather, John Rolfe and Pocahontas.
The show, which traces the ancestral histories of celebrities, also uncovered that Norton’s third great-grandfather, John Winstead, owned a family of slaves including a 55-year-old man, a 37-year-old woman and five young girls, aged 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10. Norton, 53, who said he had researched his own ancestry before his appearance on “Finding Your Roots,” expressed that that part of history didn’t sit well with him.
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