CELEBRITY GENEALOGY

7 Things You Didn’t Know about Prince’s Roots

It’s still hard to believe that Prince Rogers Nelson — better known simply as Prince — is no longer with us, though his music and talent will linger forever. As today would have been his 60th birthday, it seems a fitting time for a modest tribute looking into his past — and by that, I mean his pre-Minnesota, pre-purple, ancestral past. Here are a few of the discoveries I found scattered in the branches of his family tree:

• Among the surnames that appear in Prince’s family tree are Bonnell, Brooks, Hardy, Head, Jenkins, Nelson, Phillips and Shaw, so those sharing these names could be related.

List of Freedmen “that desire land under the provision of the homestead act” including Presley Shaw, Prince’s great-grandfather, Sept 1866, Bienville, Louisiana (FamilySearch). Please help transcribe these valuable records.

• As with other gifted musicians such as Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Prince has a concentration of Louisiana roots. In fact, all four of his grandparents were born there, though Minnesota, Georgia, Arkansas, and North Carolina can also claim a piece of his heritage. Within Louisiana, Prince has roots in Claiborne, Webster, Bienville and Lincoln parishes. More specifically, the towns of Homer, Cotton Valley, Arcadia and Vienna, are all ancestral hometowns.
• Twins run on both sides of Prince’s family. His mother was one, and there were also twins in the Nelson branch on his father’s side.