In the most recent episode of “Finding Your Roots,” which aired on February 7 and featured Joe Manganiello, the actor makes a startling discovery about his family’s history.
The cast of the show rapidly finds that the actor’s paternal grandfather’s DNA does not line up with the actor’s own DNA when they are studying the actor’s family history.
The group is now pondering the following question: Who is his actual grandfather?
The 46-year-old man revealed this information while he was chatting with the show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr. He stated that his father Charles Manganiello wasn’t surprised to hear the news because he has always had a strained relationship with the man whom he believed to be his father, Emilio Manganiello.
After that, the group makes it their mission to figure out who Charles’ biological father really is.
DNA analysis has led researchers to Manganiello’s paternal great-grandparents, William Henry Cutler and Nellie Alton, who were born and raised in the state of Massachusetts. The couple gave birth to five boys and two daughters, thus the issue that has to be asked is: which of the sons is Charles’ biological father? To put it another way, the host Gates says, “One of those guys is your grandpa.”
At the end of the day, there was no way to tell which of the Cutler brothers was the correct Cutler brother. Using birth and death data, the team was able to reduce the pool down to three of Henry and Nellie’s boys as they continued their investigation. “There was not enough evidence to identify which is our guy, but there is no question that Joe derives from one of the three,” Gates said. “There is no doubt that Joe is descended from one of the three.”
But they did discover an intriguing fact about the race that the Cutler brothers were running. The “Finding Your Roots” teams discover, after looking at historical records that contain information about their race, that William H. Cutler and Nellie Cutler’s sons were “light-skinned African American men,” to use Gates’ phrase. This information was discovered while the teams were researching historical records.
Gates clarifies the situation by saying, “That implies, (Joe), that according to the one drop rule, you would be an African American.”
Manganiello responds, “Boy, it is certainly very fascinating.”
After doing some further research, the researchers discovered that Manganiello’s genealogy consisted of 2% of people from sub-Saharan Africa and 98% of people from Europe. About a third of his grandfather’s ancestry came from countries located in sub-Saharan Africa.
The group comes to the conclusion that William H. Cutler and his wife, Nellie Cutler, were an interracial pair.
“If Emilio had been your great-grandfather, he would be the one to guide you through the Italian and Sicilian limbs of your family tree. However, Emilio is not. Therefore, we’ll be guiding you up the African American branch of your family tree “he explains.
In 1887, William H. Cutler and Nellie Alton tied the knot, despite the fact that weddings between people of different races were socially unacceptable at the time. According to Gates, William Cutler was an African-American man, and Nellie Cutler was a white lady. Both of them were named Nellie.
Gates spoke to a few of Nellie Cutler’s relatives, and they all indicated that her parents disowned her because she married a Black guy. Gates found this out via his interviews.
When referring to Nellie Cutler’s staunch beliefs, Manganiello exclaims, “That’s guts.” “I can’t believe you said that.”
When the crew looks even farther back on this side of Manganiello’s family tree, they discover a guy called Plato Turner who is Manganiello’s sixth great grandpa. Turner was born in Africa and was sold into slavery at a young age. Over time, he worked his way out of slavery and finally became a free man who participated in the American Revolution.
Manganiello expresses his astonishment at the revelation that a previously unknown branch of his family tree has been discovered.
“For me to be sitting here now is the equivalent of successfully threading a needle while shooting a bow and arrow at a distance of three hundred yards. It is not conceivable at all “he explains.
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Manganiello believes that knowing about his forefathers has provided him with a sense of solace as he reflects on the event.
“If I were a tree, for the first time in its life it would have roots. It’s not going to blow away. I am aware of what it is, I am aware of the individuals who were involved, and I am aware of where I originally hail from “he adds. “Instead than wondering about what I am a part of, it’s incredibly important for me to comprehend it.”
He stated, “This is one of the finest things I’ve been given in my life.”
