Ancestry of Ryan Gosling, his French-Canadian roots

Ryan Thomas Gosling was born on November 12, 1980 in London, Ontario (Canada). He is the son of Thomas Ray Gosling, a traveling salesman for a paper mill, and Donna, a secretary who qualified as a high school teacher in 2011.

Gosling's parents were Mormons, and Gosling has said that the religion influenced every aspect of their lives. Because of his father's work, they moved around a lot and Gosling lived in both Cornwall, Ontario, and Burlington, Ontario. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he and his older sister Mandi lived with their mother. His father is of part French-Canadian descent.

A diverse ethnic breakdown

The ethnic origins of Ryan Gosling's ancestors are multiple; although the majority of the ancestors are from England and France, a smaller number come from Spain, Ireland, Belgium and Monaco.

Black ancestors

Ryan Gosling has black ancestors. In the registers of Saint-Andre-d'Argenteuil parish, a death certificate dated October 10th, 1850, attracts attention. Marie Trottier is said to be « femme de couleur epouse de Jacques James Robertson (Robinson) ». In other acts, her husband is described as «Negro». In the book « Les noirs du Quebec 1629-1900 » by Daniel Gay (Cahiers des Ameriques, Les Editions du Septentrion 2004), it is mentioned « 1806 Rigaud, the Black Jack Robertson or Robinson marries the Quebecois Marie Trottier ». No record of their marriage has yet been found in the registers. More information on this couple is available here.

A lot of French-Canadian ancestors

The French-Canadian roots of Ryan Gosling can be found in the ancestry of his paternal grandmother, Mary Yvette Brown, and his maternal grandmothers, Marie Georgina Victoria Dextras and Rose Emma Lalonde.

Ryan Gosling, a cousin of Angelina Jolie, Hillary Clinton, Madonna, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Jack Kerouac and Camilla, Queen of the United Kingdom…

perche-quebec.com has discovered that Ryan Gosling has many family ties with other celebrities in the film industry (Angelina Jolie, Xavier Dolan), politics (Hillary Clinton, Justin Trudeau), and music (Madonna, Justin Bieber, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette). All those celebrities have in common French-Canadian pioneers, and in particular Percheron pioneers.

For instance, the Percheron pioneer Zacharie Cloutier, an ancestor of most of the celebrities mentioned before, who was born in Mortagne-au-Perche.

As strange as it may seem, there is nothing exceptional about those family ties. As the Percheron pioneers were among the very first French settlers to arrive in what was then known as New France, most of North Americans with French-Canadian ancestry have Percheron blood and are more or less related.

Famous cousins of Ryan Gosling

source & infographics perche-quebec.com

Ryan Gosling has many family ties with the famous descendants of those Percheron pioneers.

perche-quebec.com has found out not less than:
• 307 family links with Justin Bieber
• 254 family links with Celine Dion
• 191 family links with Madonna
• 170 family links with Angelina Jolie
• 168 family links with Jim Carrey
• 130 family links with Xavier Dolan
• 117 family links with Jack Kerouac
• 110 family links with Justin Trudeau
• 22 family links with Alanis Morissette
• 16 family links with Hillary Clinton
• 8 family links with Camilla, Queen of the United Kingdom

The Percheron ancestors of Ryan Gosling