Having always assumed that her ancestors were recent immigrants, and doubted that her family had any significant lineage in the United States Sarah Jessica Parker was shocked to discover another side to her family history. On her father's side she knew that she had Jewish roots, but her mother's side was more of a mystery. She knew that her mother was born and raised in Cincinnati's German community, like her parents and grandparents before her, but didn't know much more than that. But a visit to her mother revealed a distinctly non-German sounding name, Lillian Hodge, Sarah Jessica's great-grandmother.
Intrigued by the Hodge name, Sarah Jessica headed to Cincinnati, where she discovered an obituary for her three times grandfather that revealed that his father, John Hodge, died on a journey to California in 1849. Wanting to know more, Sarah Jessica embarked on a journey which took her to the gold fields of northern California, where she uncovered a tragic story surrounding another of her ancestors who, like thousands of other young men, travelled west in search of gold.
Digging further back, her journey also spanned to Colonial New England where she uncovered a collection of 17th-century trial papers, revealing that another ancestor was involved in one of the most terrifying events in American history.
Sarah Jessica, it seems, is much more "classically American" than she thinks.
Wikipedia: Sarah Jessica Parker (en.wikipedia.org)
