Genealogy platform MyHeritage has revealed that Hollywood actresses Sydney Sweeney and Marilyn Monroe are ninth cousins once removed. Researchers investigated their family histories extensively for years. They were inspired to take on the study owing to years of public comparisons between the two stars regarding their looks and old Hollywood style choices.
The research shows that their paternal lines connect through a common ancestor named Ezra Perry, an early seventeenth-century settler in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Sydney Sweeney descends from this lineage through her father, Steven Sweeney, while Marilyn Monroe's ancestry traces back through her biological father, Charles Stanley Gifford. "Although the familial connection is distant, we are hereby noting that the discovery adds a surprising genealogical twist to the ongoing cultural comparisons between the modern star and the legendary icon," the researchers were quoted as saying.
Why movie buffs are not surprised:
Netizens are largely underwhelmed and skeptical, treating the study as trivia that means almost nothing. Commenters noted that a "ninth-cousin connection (roughly 10 generations back to the 1600s) is so distant that most people of colonial New England or broader European ancestry in the US would share similar or closer links" if you dug deep enough. People quipped that half of Hollywood (or any random person on the street) could be ninth cousins under the same logic, or joked about being related to random historical figures themselves.
