Sydney Sweeney and Marilyn Monroe Are Distant Cousins

People have compared Sydney Sweeney and Marilyn Monroe for a while now. Blonde, bombshells, larger-than-life… public images – and now, apparently, bloodline can be added to the list.

According to new research from genealogy platform MyHeritage, Sweeney and Monroe are ninth cousins, once removed. The company traced both women’s paternal lines back to Ezra Perry, an early settler in Sandwich, Massachusetts, who lived from roughly 1625 to 1689.

Sweeney’s branch runs through her father, Steven Sweeney, while Monroe’s traces through her biological father, Charles Stanley Gifford. It’s an extremely distant connection, but an interesting one given how often Sweeney has been compared to Monroe.

Earlier this year, Sweeney wore a vintage Ceil Chapman gown nearly identical to one Monroe wore in 1952 and looked every bit as glamorous, which is saying something. And after that “great genes” American Eagle campaign last year, some could argue maybe she deserves a partial apology. It looks like the genealogy has some receipts, though they are over 300 years old.

“People have always drawn parallels between Sydney Sweeney and Marilyn Monroe, but seeing their paths align on a deeper level inspired us to look for a real bond in the MyHeritage archives,” Roi Mandel, Director of Research at MyHeritage, said in a statement. “Uncovering their shared branch was incredible, it’s a powerful reminder that humanity is one vast family tree, and when we dig deep, we uncover how remarkably interconnected we all are.”

MyHeritage has gone celebrity-family-tree hunting before, previously uncovering that Friends co-stars Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox were distant cousins and Taylor Swift’s tree connects to Louis XIV. In Sweeney and Monroe’s case, their shared ancestor sits roughly 10 generations back, enough to represent more than 2,000 ancestor slots. So odds are good — and now confirmed  — she isn’t the first knockout in the family. She is, however, the first to lose 200,000 Instagram followers in 48 hours over a sports-betting ad.