Apparently somewhere along the line, Justin Bieber, Ryan Gosling, Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne are all related, which isn’t all that shocking considering:
1. Three of them are from Ontario and all of them are from Canada.
2. At some point or another ALL OF US ARE RELATED.
The whole scheme is clearly a blatant marketing campaign by Ancestry.com to amp up users but it’s admittedly a pretty smart one. The Canadian heritage archive told People the family links back to the early settlers of Canada’s Quebec province. Bieber and Gosling are 11th cousins once removed; he and Dion are 10th cousins three times removed; and he and Lavigne are 12th cousins.
If you really think about it though we’re all related in some way or another. So the whole message of this project and my article specifically is that you can be related to any celebrity you like. (You could totally go to a party and be all “Kanye and I are LITERALLY bros.”) I’m not thinking about it too much when it comes to Ryan Gosling though — being related to him puts a damper on our imminent relationship.
Anyway, thanks Ancestry.com for pointing out something that’s not very shocking but still mildly interesting for some reason.
Check it out here:
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have been good friends and writing partners for awhile, but now it’s reveled the two are actually distantly related, reports E! News. The New England Genealogical Society says both actors are descendants of bricklayer William Knowlton Jr., making Damon and Affleck tenth cousins, once removed.
Affleck is also revealed to be related to 16 American presidents, and Princess Diana, while Damon shares DNA with 11 former presidents.
