Roots: Seeing Stars
Written by Paul Jones
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Posted July 6, 2021
Alamy
Someone recently asked me why I’ve never explored the roots of famous people in this column. I’ve happily offered case histories of people who were not household names (sometimes not even within their own families). Why not public figures or celebrities? I was unexcited by the idea, so I decided to do a tour of celebrity genealogy coverage to figure out why.
By and large, major mainstream media ignore genealogy, except for occasional human-interest stories or when a new Canadian prime minister or American president is elected. (In recent years, the mainstream media in both countries have been obsessed with reporting the Irish ancestry of political leaders ... but more on that later!)