What do pop queen Madonna, Canadian singer Celine Dion, Angelina Jolie, and the Prince of Wales' mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles have in common? One genealogist claimed that they are all related.

The late American genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner 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 from Zacharie Cloutier (1617-1708), while Camilla and Celine descend from Jean Guyon (1619-1694) - both of whom died in Chateau-Richer, Quebec. Angelina Jolie is also a distant relative of Camilla, with Camilla and Ms Jolie being ninth cousins. Hillary Rodham Clinton is related – albeit distantly – to Angelina Jolie and Madonna.

You can see William Addams Reitwiesner’s work at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1167774/Royal-news-Camilla-Parker-Bowles-family-relations-Angelina-Jolie-Madonna-Celine-Dion

You can also view Madonna’s ancestry on Genealogy.com’s Web site. 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 http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/madonna/index.html for details.

NOTE: All of the information presented on the Web pages 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, sieur du (Lord of) Buisson. 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, Angelina Jolie, and Camilla Parker-Bowles.