Marilyn of Munro! Blonde bombshell had SCOTTISH roots and descended from famous clan where she got her name, DNA experts reveal

• Experts claim Marilyn Monroe descended from the Munro clan, from Moray 
• Norma Jeane Mortenson took her screen name from her mother Gladys Monroe
• Gladys could trace her father’s line back to John Munro, a prisoner of war exiled to America after the Battle of Worcester during the English Civil War in 1651. 

DNA experts claim screen goddess Marilyn Monroe descended from one of Scotland’s most famous clans. 

The movie star’s ancestors are thought to have lived in Edinkillie, near Forres and were members of the Munro clan, from Moray.

The blonde bombshell was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, but took her screen name from her mother, Gladys Monroe.

The Clan Munro DNA project has evidence that Marilyn Monroe’s forefathers were related to a Munro family from the Moray village of Edinkillie, near Forres

Munro clan chief Hector Munro of Foulis. He said: ‘Munros whose ancestors travelled throughout the world, as well as those who stayed in Scotland, will be coming together to celebrate our shared history, heritage and traditions, whatever their genes may tell us’

Monroe’s mother Gladys could trace her father’s line back to John Munro, a prisoner of war exiled to America after the Battle of Worcester during the English Civil War in 1651. 

Hundreds of members of Clan Munro will hear details of her Scottish kin during a clan gathering at Foulis Castle, near Dingwall, for a meeting on the DNA project next week.

Two years ago the project made an appeal for clan members to help to confirm the Scots origin of Monroe’s ancestors. 

No Munro men who shared the same signature pattern of the male Y chromosome had been found in Scotland, so the link to the Highland clan was uncertain.

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

Descendants of this Munro family, some of whom emigrated to the Bahamas in the 18th Century, carry the unique Y chromosome marker previously found only in descendants of 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 said: ‘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.’

Hundreds of members of Clan Munro will hear details of her Scottish kin during a clan gathering in the Highlands next weekend. They will meet at Foulis Castle (pictured) for an update on the latest discoveries in the clan’s DNA project

Previously the Munro DNA project found that US President James Monroe was of a different male line, most closely related to the Munros of Teaninich Castle in Alness. 

Last year it was revealed how the sex symbol was a descendant of John Alden, a crew member who sailed aboard the Mayflower all the way to Plymouth Colony.

He was initially hired as the ship’s cooper, whose job it was to maintain barrels.

The Mayflower transported the first English Puritans, now known as Pilgrims, from Plymouth in the UK to the U.S. in 1620.

Ship’s carpenter and American colonist John Alden with his wife Priscillia at the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts sometime around 1621. Among their descendants include Marilyn Monroe 

The Mayflower transported the first English Puritans, now known as Pilgrims, from Plymouth in the UK to the U.S. in 1620

The society’s Pilgrim database project launched last year with the cooperation of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants includes 193,000 birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial records through five generations of 50 of the 51 Pilgrims known to have descendants. 

Alden married a fellow Mayflower passenger, Priscilla Mullins who was just 16 when she boarded the ship with her parents. 

But they died from ‘disease or cold’ just weeks after the Mayflower arrived in America.  

Among John and Priscilla’s descendants are presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the comedians Dick Van Dyke and his brother Jerry Van Dyke, actor, director and producer Orson Welles, and Marilyn Monroe.

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