Her great-grandmother had an affair with a married man
Julia Roberts found out her last name isn’t really Roberts. Digging through the family archives revealed a secret scandal.
The 55-year-old actress appeared on the TV show “Finding Your Roots” where she helped Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. to find out more about her family tree through genealogy work.
Julia couldn’t believe that her last name was completely different from the one she was known by. It has emerged that actress Rhoda Suttle Roberts’ great-great-grandmother had an affair with a married man after the death of her husband Willis Roberts.
“We found in the Georgia archives that in the 1850s, Rhoda married a man named Willis Roberts,” Dr. Henry told the actress.
The actress bears the surname of her great-great-grandfather Willis, but he died in 1864. It turns out that he died almost ten years before Julia’s great-grandfather John was born.
“In 1880 census listings, Willis Roberts is missing, but great-grandfather John is included,” says Julia’s doctor.
He explained how his team had not discovered any details about the identity of Julia’s great-great-grandfather. Finally, they did a DNA test with samples from the actress and her cousin to find out who their great-grandfather’s father was.
“We found matches that link Julia and her cousin to a man named Henry McDonald Mitchell,” says Dr. Henry.
The story is getting more interesting. It turns out that Henry was married to a woman named Sarah and had six children.
“I’m really blown away. It’s amazing, but I still prefer the Roberts,” says Julia.
