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Daily Record
Daily Record
Entertainment
Bev Lyons

Inside Marilyn Monroe's family history as Hollywood star had Scottish ancestry

She was one of the most famous faces in Hollywood known as the "blonde bombshell".

But did you know Marilyn Monroe had Scottish ancestry?

As Kim Kardashian wowed in the iconic actress' original dress at the Met Gala and a hit documentary about the icon airs on Netflix, fascination with the starlet is sure to peak.

The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes aired on Netflix last week and is in the top 10 most watched shows on the channel.

It looks at the conflicting reports around the exact circumstances of where she died through hundreds of recordings.

Marilyn Monroe poses for a portrait in 1953 (Getty Images)

In addition to the Netflix series, Kim Kardashian also set the red carpet alight when she wore a crystal-embellished gown last seen on Marilyn Monroe sixty years ago when she serenaded the US president John F Kennedy for his birthday.

Marilyn died in August 1962 but there has always been a fascination with her life and death.

Scotland has always had a deep love for the star who rose to fame with hit 1950s movies like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Seven Year Itch and Some Like it Hot.

And in 2019 it was revealed that she is one of us - through discoveries made of her ancestral roots.

Kim Kardashian attends The 2022 Met Gala in Marilyn Monroe dress (Getty Images for The Met Museum/)

Hundreds of members of Clan Munro heard about her Scottish links during a Clan Gathering in the Highlands at Foulis Castle, near Dingwall.

The clan’s DNA project was started in 2017 and had appealed for Scots clan members to assist with their research into Marilyn's Scots roots.

Marilyn's original name was Norma Jeane Mortenson but her mum was Gladys Monroe and that is where she took her screen name from.

Many American Monroes could be traced back to John Munro, a prisoner of war who was exiled to America after the Battle of Worcester during the English Civil War in 1651.

Because no Munro men shared the same signature pattern of the male or Y chromosome that was found in Scotland, the link to a Highland clan was not certain.

Marilyn Monroe arriving at the premiere of the film 'There's No Business like Show Business' in 1954 (Getty Images)

However, the Clan Munro DNA project proved Marilyn’s forefathers were related to a Munro family from the Moray village of Edinkillie, near Forres.

Some of the descendants emigrated to the Bahamas in the 18th century, but they carried the unique Y chromosome marker previously found only in descendants of the exiled John Munro.

Another member of the Moray family, William Munro, emigrated from Scotland to Batavia, now Jakarta in Indonesia, in the early 19th Century and married into a Dutch family.

William's descendant Roelof Zeijdel told the Daily Mail in 2019: 'I was most proud to discover my clan Munro heritage, but very amazed that DNA could show also I was related to this big star that everybody knows.'

Marilyn Monroe is not the only American legend who has Scottish ancestry

Author Allan Morrison, from Greenock, claimed Elvis Presley’s roots came from the village of Lonmay, Aberdeenshire, in the 1700s.

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