I've gotten a number of replies on this which leads me to believe there is a fair amount of interest here. Should I just report to the list? I am having trouble with my main computer so it might be a few days but this should be fun. Of course, I will not put addresses of living people, but this does bring up a concern - the names of his close relatives are public knowledge. How should I handle that? Although I have never contacted him, I have spoken to his uncle, who lives in Kentucky. He is in some contact but not on an everyday basis. I have not pushed in trying to approach Johnny Depp. Here is what I do know - he is very proud of his Cherokee ancestry. On one TV interview, he said he thought the Depp line was German - they are not, they were French Huguenots who came to Kentucky from Virginia. One web site says he has German, Irish and Cherokee ancestry. I don't think they really did any research. He is also of course, French and definitely English and African American. From my research and in talking to the uncle, this is what I have gathered. He isn't "close" to Kentucky - he left there while very young and I suspect he associates it with poverty. I don't think he is disinterested in his heritage but he has other pursuits that keep him busy. I really suspect that he would be most interested to learn of his African line as he likes to associate with non-mainstream activities. His father's mother, Violet Mattie Grinstead is the key to the at least some of the English and definitely his African line. By the old Jim Crow logic, he and all other Grinstead descendants have that "one drop of blood" that makes them black. Thomas Key/Keie/Kee/Kay/Kaye was born in England about 1590. He and his wife Sarah/Martha are considered "Ancient Planters" - the Jamestown version of Mayflower pioneers. He was a member of the House of Burgesses in 1629 for Denbigh/Denby, which is today's Newport News. His wife owned land across the James River in Isle of Wight County. In 1630,.a baby girl was born to Thomas Key's slave - the slave mother's name could have been Martha, but we have no positive record of her name. At first, Key denied the child was his, but his neighbors knew better. He was fined at Blunt Point Court for getting his slave with child, and after that, he made a remarkable number of provisions for the child, who was named Elizabeth Key. She was baptized in the Church of England, had an English godfather and may have been able to read and write. As an important factor of history here, the first slave ships came to Virginia in 1619. They were Dutch ships. Thomas Key's slave was undoubtedly on one of the earliest slave ships to America. Scholars believe these slaves were from the west coast of Africa in Angola - a factor that would be wonderful if we could do MDNA on this line. Unfortunately, not much is known about the descendants of Elizabeth's two daughters. Elizabeth was born somewhere between slavery and freedom, became a slave and was finally freed. Slavery was not quite an institution in those early days. I'm trying to keep this brief, but there is a beautiful love story that I can tell later if anyone is interested. Suffice it to say that Elizabeth married William Grinstead, a young indenture from England. Their desendants "bleached" with every generation,. marrying white. By about 1833,. one of their descendants was involved in a movement to send the blacks back to Africa! Most Grinstead descendants today have no idea of their ancestry and there are many who would rather not be so enlightened. Both the Grinsteads and the Depps came to Kentucky from Virginia and most settled in Warren County, with some of the Grinsteads in Warren County, especially the descendants of Naomi Grinstead and Thomas Meek/s. I am working on a book about Elizabeth and William and my crazy dream is that Johnny Depp will somehow pick up on this and want to make a movie of it, with him playing his 8th great-grandfather William Grinstead and Halle Berry playing Elizabeth Key. Well, we can all dream, can't we? I'll have more later as it comes. Amazing how I can drop everything for genealogy . . . Martha Janice Chastain Lund wrote: > Martha, I think it would be interesting to see Johnny Depp's ancestry. I > have a very "removed" connection to the DEPP family through my DOUGHERTY > ancestors. > > Thanks, Jan Lund > Jan4Gen@verizon.net > > www.babylightandclip.com > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to KYBARREN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >