Edward Norton, Julia Roberts Surprised by Family Trees

Family lore told Edward Norton that he was related to Pocahantas. Now PBS' Finding Your Roots has told him the same. The actor was stunned to learn that he is, in fact, descended from the favorite daughter of Wahunsenaca, also known as Powhatan, who ruled over dozens of Algonquian-speaking tribes around what became Jamestown, Virginia, in the early 1600s. Host Henry Louis Gates Jr. told Norton that a "direct paper trail" connects him to Pocahontas and John Rolfe, the Englishman she wed on April 5, 1614. Pocahontas, whose given name was Matoaka, is Norton's 12th great-grandmother, CBS News reports.

"It makes you realize what a small piece of the whole human story you are," Norton told Gates on the show's Season 9 premiere, aired Tuesday. There were darker secrets hiding in his family tree, however. The Glass Onion star learned his third great-grandfather, John Winstead, owned slaves, according to the 1850 North Carolina census. "These things are uncomfortable," Norton said, per the Hollywood Reporter. "It's not a judgment on you and your own life, but it's a judgment on the history of this country and it needs to be acknowledged first and foremost, and then it needs to be contended with."

Julia Roberts, who also appeared in the episode, had her mind "blown" when she learned the man whose name she carries was dead when her great-grandfather was born. Genetic genealogy indicated her biological great-great-grandfather carried the last name Mitchell. "But wait, am I not a Roberts?" she asked. "You are not a Roberts biologically," Gates told her. She also learned her fourth great-grandfather was a slave-owner, which was not a huge surprise to the Georgia native. "You can't turn your back on history even when you become a part of it in a way that doesn’t align with your personal compass," she noted. (That might have been a message for Ben Affleck.)