Ancestry Magazine

Who: Susan Sarandon, actress
What: Coming Home, a family history series produced by BBC Wales in which Sarandon participated
Why: To discover her Welsh roots

“Of course when I started acting, all these very interesting actors were Welsh, and it just sounded like a very kinda’ explosive background. I was very happy to think I might be part Welsh, but I know so little that I’m open to anything,” says Sarandon.

Born Susan Abigail Tomalin—Welsh for Thomas—her family trail was complex. With hired genealogist Cat Whiteaway, Sarandon traced her Tomalin family. To make the hunt for Welsh ancestry less elusive, Sarandon and Whiteaway decided to look into another of Sarandon’s family lines, the Guyatts.

DNA samples were taken from Sarandon and one of her brothers, which helped trace the Guyatts back to a clan in the Dordogne in France. That DNA connection led Sarandon to the Welsh roots she was hoping to find—brothers John and Charles Guyatt, who, by way of England, settled in Bridgend in the south of Wales.

Sarandon learned more. The Guyatts went to Bridgend to work as general laborers at the Tondu Ironworks­—and they were hoping that the move might enable them to escape a sentence for Charles for illegal rabbit poaching. The entire adventure, which culminated in a reunion between Sarandon, her siblings, and her son Miles with their Tomalin and Guyatt families, thrilled Sarandon to no end.

“Now we have our Welsh connection to Wales,” says Sarandon. “Through crime we got to Wales. Excellent.”

Quotes and inset photos courtesy of BBC.