Ant and Dec fans were left shocked when they discovered who Declan Donnelly’s famous cousin is.
During their show, Ant and Dec’s DNA Journey, Dec discovered that he had a long-lost cousin who was pretty famous for what she did for a living over in the US.
Dixie Carter, a wrestling mogul turned out to be his distant cousin, and the pair met up during the series.
She had been involved with the company Total Nonstop Action Wrestling for several years before she became a ‘storyline character’ in 2010, and before he met her, Dec was shown footage of her in the wrestling ring being thrown through a table.
‘It feels weird, you immediately have this kind of connection with them,’ Dec said after the meeting.
Related on Dec’s father’s side, sharing a four-times great-grandfather, the team were able to track their ancestral connection and unite them for the first time in Ireland.
+7
View gallery
Ant and Dec fans were left shocked when they discovered who Declan Donnelly ‘s famous cousin is (Ant McPartlin, Dixie Carter and Declan Donnelly pictured L-R in 2019)
Dec’s father Alphonsus Donnelly passed away in 2011 aged 78 after a battle with cancer.
Posting a picture of the three of them together, se penned on Instagram: ‘YES… Declan Donnelly is my cousin! It’s not a wrestling storyline. Dec’s fabulous. Ant too,’
Dec was left in shock when he discovered he had more than 12 cousins he didn’t know existed and some of them were almost as well off as him.
While the pair were in the US doing research for the show, they were told that Dec had a DNA match before he went off to meet his cousin Meg and her husband Greg.
The couple, who were previously unknown to Dec, provided a helicopter for him to travel in and greeted him by laying out a large banner on their lawn.
Meg said: ‘We have the same great, great grandparents.’
She added: ‘I have a little surprise for you, I have a few of your cousins here.’
More than a dozen people then entered the room and Dec was left struggling for words.
Dixie Carter, a wrestling mogul turned out to be his distant cousin, and the pair met up during the series
+7
View gallery
She had been involved with the company Total Nonstop Action Wrestling for several years before she became a ‘storyline character’ in 2010, and before he met her, Dec was shown footage of her in the wrestling ring being thrown through a table
+7
View gallery
Related on Dec’s father’s side, sharing a four-times great-grandfather, the team were able to track their ancestral connection and unite them for the first time in Ireland(pictured: Dec’s dad on the car next to his mother left)
He said: ‘Oh wow, this is amazing. I’m really emotional. Oh my goodness. Nice to meet you all.
‘This is quite overwhelming!’
Dec was then introduced to another of his cousins, Tom, who was a firefighter in Manhattan that was on duty during 9/11.
Later in the programme, an emotional past was found in Ant’s family tree relating to his grandmother, Kitty.
Kitty was from Ireland and Ant’s family didn’t know anything about her life before she moved to England from Fermoy, County Cork, when she was about 12 years old.
Ant learns that his great-grandmother, Kitty’s mother, died of tuberculosis but because it was considered shameful, records of it were covered up.
Genealogy expert Anne-Marie Coghlan said: ‘It was the shame of the family so it would be concealed in the records. It’s very, very sad.’
He then discovered that Kitty’s older brother Michael died when he was eight from whooping cough.
+7
View gallery
Dec was left in shock when he discovered he had more than 12 cousins he didn’t know existed and some of them were almost as well off as him
+7
View gallery
The couple, who were previously unknown to Dec, provided a helicopter for him to travel in and greeted him by laying out a large banner on their lawn
Kitty never knew because she was told by her parents that he emigrated to America, possibly to shield her from the pain of grief.
Ant said: ‘Thank you very much, this is invaluable to my family, especially to my mother and her sisters and brother.
‘Its information that they’ve been dying to know for years. You’ve really brought her to life with this, thank you.
‘I loved her so much I’ve got nothing but fond memories of her.’
News
The wolf wouldn’t let his family near the coffin. A minute later, an incredible thing happened!
The wolf stood between the living and the dead, and no one in the room was brave enough to move him. Outside, the Altai mountains had gone white under an early snow. Wind pressed against the shutters of Mikhail Sokolov’s…
The cub grinned and did not let go of the bag. The old man opened it and couldn’t believe his eyes!
The wolf cub bared his teeth over an old canvas bag, and all at once the men with shovels forgot how to move. He was no longer small, not truly. The villagers still called him “the cub” because they remembered…
The old man found a crying bundle in the forest, and when he opened it, he screamed in horror!
Beyond his gate, the track narrowed into two frozen ruts, then disappeared between black spruce and birch trunks, swallowed by the Siberian taiga. In summer, the place smelled of resin, nettles, river mud, and warm dust. In winter, it…
The wounded wolf led the old man to an abandoned hut. The secret inside shocked everyone!
The wolf came to Yegor Timofeevich’s door during the kind of storm that makes even old houses doubt themselves. All evening the wind had thrown snow against the walls of the cordon, rattling the shutters, shoving at the roof beams,…
The Dog Who Refused the Grave
Its ceilings arched high enough to humble grief. Its walls swallowed small sounds and returned them softened, merciful, distant. People entered Saint Jude’s Funeral Chapel already speaking in lowered voices, as though the room itself had issued instructions before…
The Mare Who Returned from the D.ead
Chapter 1: The Pen at the Edge of the Market Sergey Pavlovich Rudnev had not gone to the village market to buy a horse. He had gone for salt, kerosene, a sack of seed potatoes if the price was kind,…
End of content
No more pages to load
