Actress Sydney Sweeney and screen legend Marilyn Monroe are ninth cousins, once removed, according to genealogy research that MyHeritage released Wednesday.
The family-history platform traced the connection through the women’s fathers: Sweeney’s father, Steven Sweeney, and Monroe’s biological father, Charles Stanley Gifford. Both descend from Ezra Perry, a 17th-century settler in Sandwich, Massachusetts, who lived from about 1625 to 1689.
Roi Mandel, MyHeritage’s director of research, said in a statement that the long-running comparisons between the two actresses led researchers to search the company’s archives for a genuine family bond.
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Ms. Sweeney has drawn those comparisons for her Old Hollywood styling. In February, she accepted a Virtuosos Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in a vintage Ceil Chapman gown that closely mirrored the dress Monroe wore on her first Life magazine cover in April 1952. Her stylist, Molly Dickson, later confirmed the look was intentionally inspired by that image.
Two months earlier, Ms. Sweeney wore a white Galia Lahav gown with a feathered skirt to the Los Angeles Housemaid premiere. The dress echoed the one Monroe wore in the 1955 film “The Seven Year Itch.”
MyHeritage has made similar announcements before. The company previously reported that “Friends” co-stars Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox were distant cousins.
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