Overview

• After his May 2025 election as the first American pontiff, genealogists from the New York Times Magazine, American Ancestors and the Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami released his complete family tree.
• The research uncovered a complex legacy that includes 12 ancestors who were slave owners and 17 people of African descent, some of whom were enslaved.
• Lineage features Charles Louis Boucher de Grandpre, who fought against the British in the American Revolution.
• One branch traces to Antonio José de Sucre, the Latin American liberation hero and Bolivia’s first constitutionally elected president.
• Distant cousinships link him to celebrities and politicians such as Madonna, Justin Bieber, Justin Trudeau and Hillary Clinton.