-[Henry VO] We'd already traced Julia Roberts' maternal roots
back to Sweden, introducing her to a host of ancestors whose
names had been lost when her family moved to America.
Now, turning to the paternal side of Julia's family tree,
we found ourselves in Southwest Georgia,
exploring a name that had been lost for a very different
reason.
The story begins with Julia's great-grandfather John Roberts,
who grew up on a farm with his mother,
a woman named Rhoda Suttle.
-Ever hear of that name? -No.
-[Henry] Well, I'm gonna tell you about her.
Would you please turn the page?
-"Suttle" is not anything anyone's ever called anyone in
my family, by the way. -[Henry] [laughs]
This is the 1880 census for Douglas County, Georgia.
-[whispering] Wow.
-[Henry] There's your great-grandfather John;
you see him, right? As a child.
-[Julia] He was two years old there.
-[Henry] Uh-huh.
Living with his mother, your great-great-grandmother,
Rhoda Suttle Roberts, right? -Right.
-[Henry] And three brothers.
You notice anyone missing?
-A dad. -A dad.
A dad is missing.
John's father, Rhoda's husband, isn't there.
You ever heard anything about him?
-No.
-[Henry VO] Digging into Georgia's county archives,
we discovered that some time in the 1850s,
Rhoda married a man named Willis Roberts.
Julia carries Willis' last name.
But Willis passed away in 1864,
over a decade before Rhoda gave birth to Julia's
great-grandfather John,
leading to an inescapable conclusion.
-Julia, Willis Roberts could not possibly be your
great-great-grandfather.
He was dead.
-But, wait...
But am I not a Roberts?!
-Well, let's see what we found.
We scoured Douglas County looking for any record that
named John's father...
and we found absolutely nothing. -Wow.
-[Henry] Douglas County didn't issue birth certificates in
1878, and marriage certificates didn't name parents' names at
the time.
Fortunately, we had another tool,
and that was DNA. -[whispering] Wow!
-[Henry VO] Julia and one of her father's first cousins,
a fellow descendent of John Roberts,
both agreed to take DNA tests.
We then compared their results to people in publicly-available
databases, searching for matches and looking to see how those
matches might be connected, hoping to identify John's father
through the DNA of his descendants.
In the end, we found a cluster of matches that tied Julia and
her cousin to one man.
-Henry McDonald Mitchell, Jr.
-You just read the name of your biological
great-great-grandfather.
-So we're Mitchells?
-You're Julia Mitchell.
-[laughs]
-[laughing] You are not a Roberts biologically.
-Wow.
That is crazy!
I-- I bet nobody knew!
-Well, everybody near that farm knew,
because her husband wasn't there and she was still having babies!
-Wow.
Is my head on straight still?
-[laughs] -Am I facing you? [laughs]
-[Henry VO] There's no way to tell if Rhoda ever told John the
identity of his father, but we found a reason to think that she
might have kept it a secret.
In the 1880 census, recorded when John was two,
his biological father Henry Mitchell is living with his
wife, a woman named Sarah, along with their six children.
-And he lived just a few miles from Rhoda.
-A few short miles, it would seem.
-[laughs]
And get this: according to the same census,
Henry's widowed mother, Elizabeth Mitchell,
lived just four households from Rhoda.
-[whispering] Wow.
-What's like to see that?
Henry was married, but his mother lived close to your
great-great-grandmother. -[laughs]
-So he would go see his mother like a good boy.
-[Julia] Gosh!
And Sarah was probably saying,
"Aw, you're gonna go see your mom?
That's so sweet." -[laughs]
-Wow.
-What are you feeling right now, Ms. Mitch-- I mean Ms. Roberts?
[laughter]
-I mean, on the one hand, I truly-- my mind is blown.
-[laughs]
-And it is fascinating.
And on the other hand, there's, you know,
part of me that, when I'm...calmer...
you know, can still wrap my arms around the idea that,
you know-- that my family is my family.
-[Henry] Of course.
-And I do prefer the name "Roberts." [laughs]
-And that is your name! [laughs]
-Um...
Yeah, it's...
This was...a very unexpected turn, Doctor.
-[Henry] [laughs]