Hollywood Royalty Icons Have British Blood

24-02-2007 13:38

Joan Crawford one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses, Joan Crawford was born ‘Lucille Fay LeSueur’ to parents of English descent, although her original surname originates from her French Huguenot ancestors who emigrated from London to Virginia in the 1700s.

Spencer Tracy Spencer Bonaventure Tracy is descended from Irish ancestry on his father’s side and English ancestry on his mother’s side of the family.

Bing Crosby born Harry Lillis Crosby in 1903, Bing Crosby’s paternal ancestors immigrated to the United States on the Mayflower in the seventeenth century.

Clint Eastwood a Hollywood urban legend rumours Clint Eastwood to be British comic Stan Laurel’s son, although in reality Eastwood is the son of Clinton Eastwood Snr, born in California!

Elaine Collins, Commercial Director at findmypast.com, says: Hundreds of thousands of Britons immigrated to the United States each year between 1890 and 1910 and it’s fantastic to discover so many families and their descendents succeeded in finding the ‘American Dream’. However, while finding a family link to a famous figure can often be seen as the holy grail, uncovering even the smallest details about your ancestors’ lives can provide a ‘eureka moment’ for family history enthusiasts, whether its finding you still have living relatives in the country your ancestors immigrated to today, or just discovering what your great-great grandparents did for a living.

To discover if your ancestors set sail across the Atlantic in search of fame and fortune in Hollywood, family history enthusiasts can log onto www.ancestorsonboard.com to search the passenger lists from ships leaving UK ports on long-distance voyages between 1890 and 1960 for records of their ancestors.

Ancestorsonboard.com provides access to records of passengers on all ships leaving England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, beginning with records from between 1890 and 1909. The high quality, full colour, digitised ship passenger records contain over 1.5 million pages, listing the 30 million passengers who travelled on long-distance journeys from UK ports. They include passenger records from the period of mass migration to the United States between 1900 and 1914 when an estimated average of almost 900,000 people arrived into the United States from across the globe every year**.

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