A pope and a pop star enter a family tree, and the world takes notice!
American-born Pope Leo XIV and global pop icon Madonna are long-lost relatives, tied together via a shared French forebear from the 1590s. This surprised discovery, coming via exhaustive genealogical research, bears out a cousin-to-the-nth-degree link that spans centuries and hemispheres, blending the sacred and the sensational in an event destined to delight.
Pope Leo XIV was born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago, Illinois, on September 14th, 1955. He became the 267th pope after his election on May 8th, 2025. He is well known for coming from modest roots and his missionary service in Peru. He brings to the Vatican a new American dimension. Madonna, born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Michigan, has redefined pop culture with her bold music and fearless persona. Despite their wildly different paths, a shared ancestor from 16th-century France ties these two cultural giants together as ninth cousins, various times removed.
The connection became clear through an exhaustive genealogical research article published in June 2025, commissioned by renowned scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and experts from American Ancestors and Miami’s Cuban Genealogy Club. Their study traced Pope Leo XIV’s multicultural heritage, Italian, French, Spanish, and Louisiana Creole, and found a common origin for his and Madonna, whose maternal line is French-Canadian. This common forebear, who lived in the 1590s, likely resided in France, where both lines converge and diverge later to North America.
Family Tree Connection
Below is a simplified outline of the family tree connecting Pope Leo XIV and Madonna, based on the genealogical findings:
Common Ancestor (1590s, France): The root of the connection is a French individual, likely from a region with significant migration to North America, such as Normandy or Brittany.
Pope Leo XIV’s Line:
Descendants migrate to Louisiana, blending with Spanish and Creole communities.
Maternal great-grandparents: Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, part of New Orleans’ Creole community, identified as Black or mulatto in early 1900s U.S. Census records.
Maternal grandparents: Connected to the Lemelle family, known for cattle ranching in Louisiana.
Mother: Mildred Martínez, born in New Orleans, marries Louis Marius Prevost, of French-Italian descent.
Pope Leo XIV (Robert Francis Prevost): Born 1955 in Chicago.
Madonna’s Line:
Descendants migrate to Canada, establishing French-Canadian roots.
Maternal great-grandparents: French-Canadian settlers in Michigan.
Mother: Madonna Louise Fortin, born 1933 in Michigan, of French-Canadian descent.
Madonna (Madonna Louise Ciccone): Born 1958 in Bay City, Michigan.
Small details like the number of generations make this ninth-cousin relationship with its “various times removed” label so fascinating. For instance, if Pope Leo XIV is 12 generations down the line from that shared ancestor and Madonna is 13, that makes them ninth cousins, once removed—a quirky twist of family math.
The French connection ties it all together, thanks to France’s colonial reach into Louisiana and Canada, which set the stage for the migrations that shaped their family stories over centuries.
Pope Leo XIV’s family is like a living snapshot of America’s rich cultural mix. His dad, Louis Marius Prevost, came from Sicilian immigrants who swapped their original name, Riggitano, for Prevost when they landed in the U.S. in 1903. His mom, Mildred Martínez, grew up in New Orleans’ colorful Creole community, with roots among free people of color and notable families like the Lemelles.
Raised in Chicago alongside his brothers, Louis Martín and John Joseph, young Robert soaked up the Catholic faith from an early age—his brother John still chuckles about how they’d play “priest” as kids.
Madonna’s background echoes a similar tale of immigrant grit. Her father, Silvio Anthony “Tony” Ciccone, is from Pacentro, an Italian town, and her mother, Madonna Louise Fortin, is descended from French-Canadian immigrants who had settled in Michigan. This blend of Italian and French-Canadian roots feels like a mirror to the diverse heritage in Pope Leo XIV’s life, making their distant family tie all the more intriguing.
This discovery isn’t just a fun fact to toss around—it reminds us how deeply connected we all are through history. Pope Leo XIV, breaking new ground with his papacy, and Madonna, shaking up the music world with her bold creativity, embody two sides of the American experience: one grounded in faith and service, the other in artistic daring. Thanks to some amazing genealogical detective work, their shared ancestry shows how migration and time can weave unexpected bonds between people.
The research even links Pope Leo XIV to a star-studded cast of distant relatives, like Pierre and Justin Trudeau, Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber, and Jack Kerouac, painting a picture of an expansive family network. Madonna, too, has her share of famous kin—her French-Canadian roots reportedly tie her to someone like Celine Dion. But connecting with a pope? That twist adds a whole new level of wow to her story. It shows how migration and history weave unexpected threads between us all.
The research also connects Pope Leo XIV to other notable figures, including Pierre and Justin Trudeau, Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber, and Jack Kerouac, highlighting the vast web of distant relations. For Madonna, this isn’t her first brush with famous kin—she’s also reportedly related to figures like Celine Dion through her French-Canadian roots. Yet, the link to a pope adds a new layer of fascination to her story.
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