Five Key Discoveries in the Family Tree of Pope Leo XIV
On May 8, an American cardinal named Robert Francis Prevost became Pope Leo XIV. Later that day, The Times, drawing on research by Jari C. Honora, a genealogist, reported that Prevost had recent African American ancestors. This revelation came from going back just three generations — what else might be found by looking even further into the past?
Certainly, the fans of 'Finding Your Roots,' the PBS show I have hosted for 13 years, wanted to know. My inbox was flooded with emails asking us to trace the new pope's ancestry. In collaboration with the genealogists at American Ancestors and the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami, we were able to go back as far his 12th-great-grandparents, who were born in the early 1500s. Here are some of our discoveries, which you can read in detail in The New York Times Magazine feature.
Pope Leo's lineage is surprisingly international.
His diverse ancestry reflects the history of American immigration. The forebears identified so far were born in France (40), Italy (24), Spain (21), the United States (22), Cuba (10), Canada (6), Haiti (1) and Guadeloupe (1). The birthplaces are unknown for another nine ancestors who have been identified.
Many of Pope Leo's American-born ancestors were Black.
Seventeen of the pope's American ancestors were Black, described in historical records in terms ranging from 'negresse' and 'free person of color' to 'mulâtresse créole' and 'quadroon.' Another Black ancestor, the pope's grandfather Joseph Nerval Martínez, was born in Haiti, to which his African Americans parents migrated from New Orleans before returning to the city in 1866.
A dozen of the pope's ancestors were slaveholders — including several who were Black.
We Traced Pope Leo XIV's Ancestry Back 500 Years. Here's What We Found.
Noblemen, enslaved people, freedom fighters, slaveowners: what the complex family tree of the first American pontiff reveals.
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