“Actor Julia Roberts is about to uncover a secret hidden deep in the branches of her father’s family tree,” Gates Jr. told the audience, before his sitdown with Julia.
In the segment, Gates Jr. gave Julia the research he had compiled based on her ancestry. “Here’s your great grandfather, John, living with his mother.” His name was John Pendleton Roberts in the 1880 census.
That woman is her great-great grandmother, named Rhoda Suttle Roberts. Julia said she had never heard of that name.
Gates Jr. revealed that there was no father in the records. “The dad — John’s father — is missing.”
Gates Jr. shared that during the 1850s, Rhoda married a man named Willis R. Roberts, but he died in 1864 — “over a decade before Rhoda gave birth to Julia’s great grandfather, John.”
“Julia, Willis Roberts could not possibly be your great-grandfather,” he told her. “He was dead.”
Because Ancestry was able to get DNA from Julia and her cousin, they were able to match them to descendants. “In the end, we found a cluster of matches that tied Julia and her cousin to one man.” That man was Henry McDonald Mitchell Jr.
“So, we’re Mitchells?” Julia asked.
“You’re Julia Mitchell,” Gates Jr. said. “You are not a Roberts biologically.”
Literally me after watching this video:
The full video is super interesting, as they uncover more evidence as to how this whole name mixup came to be. You can watch the full thing here!
