When Julia Roberts, 55, appeared on PBS’ Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on January 11, she learned that she is not a Roberts after all. There was a “gap” in Julia’s family tree after her great-grandfather, John Pendleton Roberts, who was the son of Rhoda Suttle. Henry asked Julia whether she saw anyone missing while looking at Georgia’s 1880 Census, and she responded, “A dad?” Later, the TV host informed the Notting Hill star that she was not indeed a descendent of Rhoda’s late husband Willis R. Roberts but rather of a man by the name of Henry McDonald Mitchell Jr. John was born in 1878, more than a decade after the latter passed away in 1864
Julia was informed by Henry that Willis Roberts was no longer alive and could not possible be her great-great-grandfather. Julia said, “Oh, wait — but am I not a Roberts?” after hearing the devastating breakdown of her family’s genealogy. The researchers looked through Douglas County, Georgia for John’s father’s documents, but “absolutely nothing” was discovered. A DNA test that Julia and a first cousin of her father’s (Walter Grady Roberts) decided to take resulted in a “cluster” of matches to Henry Mitchell. She questioned, “So we’re Mitchells?” and the host said, “You’re Julia Mitchell.”
