What do pop queen Madonna, Canadian singer Celine Dion, and the
Prince Of Wales' mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles have in common? One genealogist
claims that they are all related.
American genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner has found that
Bowles' great-grandparents from nine generations ago were also ancestors of
the two singers. The relevant individuals, all French-Canadians, lived in the
seventeenth century.
Camilla and Madonna are both descended frpm Zacharie Cloutier
(1617-1708), while Camilla and Celine descend from Jean Guyon (1619-94) - both
of whom died in Chateau-Richer, Quebec.
You can see William Addams Reitwiesners work at: members.aol.com/eurostamm/camilla.html.
You can also view Madonnas ancestry on Genealogy.coms
website. In fact, you can even download a GEDCOM file from that site to your
hard drive and then import that data directly into your Windows or Macintosh
genealogy program. That certainly saves a lot of manual typing. Look at www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/madonna/index.html
for details.
NOTE: All of the information presented on the webpages mentioned
is offered on an "as is" basis. Accuracy of the information is not
guaranteed by anyone. As with any genealogy information, it is up to you to
verify the accuracy of the data by independent means.
By the way, the writer of this newsletter is also descended from
both Zacharie Cloutier and Jean Guyon. In fact, almost everyone with French-Canadian
ancestry can find these two men in their family trees as well. If you can find
these two men in your family tree, you, too, are a distant cousin of Madonna,
Celine Dion, and Camilla Parker-Bowles.