Oprah Winfrey

Ethnicity of Celebs | What Nationality Ancestry Race

Birth Name: Orpah Gail Winfrey

Place of Birth: Kosciusko, Mississippi, U.S.

Date of Birth: January 29, 1954

Ethnicity: African-American [including Kpelle, Bamileke, and Zambian]

Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. She is regarded as one of the most influential women in the world, and possibly the wealthiest African-American of the 20th century. She was the host of The Oprah Winfrey Show from 1986 to 2011.

Oprah’s parents, Vernon Winfrey and Vernita Lee, are both black. Her partner is author and public speaker Stedman Graham. Her birth name is Orpah, after the biblical figure, in the Book of Ruth. She uses the name Oprah, as people usually mispronounced it that way.

Oprah’s story is a rags-to-riches one. She was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to a single teenage mother. She herself became pregnant at the age of fourteen. Unfortunately, her baby died soon after birth. Despite her beginnings, Oprah finished school and received a scholarship into Tennessee State University, where she studied communications. She gave birth prematurely at age fourteen, to a son, Canaan, who died shortly after. At the age of seventeen, Oprah won the Miss Black Tennessee Beauty Pageant.

A DNA test whose results were displayed on the show African American Lives (2006) stated that Oprah’s genetic ancestry is:

• 89% Sub-Saharan African
• 8% Native American
• 3% East Asian

“East Asian” may refer to more Native American roots. It is not clear if these lineages have been verified/documented genealogically. The same DNA test stated that Oprah has ancestry from the Kpelle people, from what is now Liberia, the Bamileke people, from Cameroon, and a Bantu-speaking tribe, from Zambia.

Oprah’s paternal grandfather was Elmore Winfrey (the son of Sanford Elias Winfrey and Ella Staples). Elmore was born in Mississippi. Sanford was the son of Constantine Winfrey, who was born a slave, in Georgia, and of Violet A. Nunn, who was also born a slave, in North Carolina. Constantine likely took his surname from a slave owner, Absalom F. Winfrey. Oprah’s great-grandmother Ella was the daughter of William Staples and Abigail Howard.

Oprah’s paternal grandmother was Beatrice Woods (the daughter of Thomas/Tom W. Woods and Hattie Ross). Beatrice was born in Mississippi. Thomas was the son of Monroe Woods and Henrietta. Hattie was the daughter of Simon Ross and Katie.

Oprah’s maternal grandfather was named Earless/Earlist/Erlisst Lee (the son of Harold/Harry Lee and Elizabeth). Earless was born in Mississippi. Harold was born a slave in Mississippi. He was the son of John Lee and Grace.

Oprah’s maternal grandmother was Hattie Mae Presley/Pressley (the daughter of Nelson/Milton Alexander Presley/Pressley and Amanda Winters). Hattie was born in Mississippi. Amanda was the daughter of Pearce Winters and Henrietta.

A farmer named Noah Robinson, Sr. has stated that he is Oprah’s biological father. It is not clear if this claim has been investigated in any detail.

Sources: Genealogies of Oprah Winfrey – http://www.wargs.com
http://www.geni.com
http://genealogy.about.com

The Guardian article on DNA tests among African-Americans, 2006 – http://www.guardian.co.uk

• Reference: IMDb
• Reference: Wikipedia
• Reference: Oprah

Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American television host, actress, producer, and philanthropist, best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history.[1] She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century,[2] the greatest black philanthropist in American history,[3][4] and was once the world's only black billionaire.[5][6] She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.[7][8]

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, including being raped at the age of nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy.[9] Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place[5] she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication,[10] she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized[10][11] the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue,[10] which a Yale study claims broke 20th century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream.[12][13] By the mid 1990s, she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture and promoting controversial self-help aids,[14] she is often praised for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others.[15] From 2006 to 2008, her support of Barack Obama, by one estimate, delivered over a million votes in the close 2008 Democratic primary race.

Early Life

Winfrey was originally named "Orpah" after the Biblical character in the Book of Ruth. Her family and friends' inability to pronounce "Orpah" caused them to put the "P" before the "R" in every place else other than the birth certificate.[17]

Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi to unmarried teenage parents. She later said that her conception was due to a single sexual encounter and the couple broke up not long after.[18] Her mother, Vernita Lee (born c. 1935) was a housemaid. Winfrey had believed that her biological father was Vernon Winfrey (born 1933), a coal miner turned barber turned city councilman who had been in the Armed Forces when she was born. Decades later, Mississippi farmer and World War II veteran Noah Robinson Sr. (born c. 1925) claimed to be her biological father.[19] Winfrey had her DNA tested for the 2006 PBS program African American Lives. The genetic test determined that her maternal line originated among the Kpelle ethnic group, in the area that today is Liberia. Her genetic make up was determined to be 89 percent Sub-Saharan African, 8% Native American, and 3% East Asian; however, the East Asian may actually be Native American markers. Due to the limitations of genetic testing this is unsure.[20] After her birth, Winfrey's mother traveled north and Winfrey spent her first six years living in rural poverty with her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee (April 15, 1900 - February 27, 1963), who was
so poor that Winfrey often wore dresses made of potato sacks*, for which the local children made fun of her.[21]

• Oprah may have worn clothing made from feed sacks, and perhaps flour sacks were used for smaller clothing items, but she would never have worn clothing made from a potato sack, read the description below. That would just be very uncomfortable. It was however, quite common for farmers wives and daughters to wear clothing made from a feed sack, they came in very attractive prints, and one would have to have 2 or 3 of the same print

to make a dress, blouse or skirt. Forget about the potato sack theory. Now, there is a photo online, of Marilyn Monroe wearing a dress made from a potato sack, but that was done in jest, and I imagine it had a lining so
her body wouldn't have come in contact with the crude brown material (not fabric).

Potato sacks, also known as gunny sacks, are staples of any potato farming operation. If you’ve never seen them before, they’re typically brown burlap sacks that can carry around 100 pounds of potatoes apiece. You may have seen them used at your local fair for sack-racing.

Potato sacks are exceptional for the crop because the burlap material allows air to come in, letting the potatoes breathe. The material also excludes light, which would prematurely age the potatoes. These features are crucial for bringing the crop to market because the fresher the potatoes are when they get to the store, the more appealing they are to consumers.
Added by Janet Milburn 8/5/22 According to Geni, Oprah is my 16th cousin, four times removed. however this 'Above' article states she has no European blood, in her DNA, that is a real mystery if this is accurate.

Her grandmother taught her to read before the age of three and took her to the local church, where she was nicknamed "The Preacher" for her ability to recite Bible verses. When Winfrey was a child, her grandmother would take a switch and would hit her with it when she didn't do chores or if she misbehaved in any way. At age six, Winfrey moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her mother, who was less supportive and encouraging than her grandmother had been, due in large part to the long hours Vernita Lee worked as a maid.[22] Winfrey has stated that she was molested by her cousin, her uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old, something she first revealed to her viewers on a 1986 episode of her TV show, when sexual abuse was being discussed.[23][24] She once commented that she had chosen not to be a mother because she had not been mothered well.[25]

At 13, after suffering years of abuse, Winfrey ran away from home.[26] When she was 14, she became pregnant, her son dying shortly after birth.[27] She later said she felt betrayed by her family member who had sold the story to the National Enquirer in 1990.[28] She began high school at Lincoln High School; but after early success in the Upward Bound program was transferred to the affluent suburban Nicolet High School, where her poverty was constantly rubbed into her face as she rode the bus to school with fellow African-Americans, some of whom were servants of her classmates' families. She began to steal money from her mother in an effort to keep up with her free-spending peers, to lie to and argue with her mother, and to go out with older boys.[29]

Her frustrated mother sent her to live with Vernon in Nashville, Tennessee. Vernon was strict, but encouraging and made her education a priority. Winfrey became an honors student, was voted Most Popular Girl, joined her high school speech team at East Nashville High School, placing second in the nation in dramatic interpretation. She won an oratory contest, which secured her a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, a historically black institution, where she studied communication. Her first job as a teenager was working at a local grocery store.[30] At age 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant.[31] She also attracted the attention of the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part-time.[23] She worked there during her senior year of high school, and again while in her first two years of college.

Winfrey's career choice in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage. As a child she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property. Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother's influence, saying it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and "gave me a positive sense of myself."[32] Working in local media, she was both the youngest news anchor and the first black female news anchor at Nashville's WLAC-TV. She moved to Baltimore's WJZ-TV in 1976 to co-anchor the six o'clock news. She was then recruited to join Richard Sher as co-host of WJZ's local talk show People Are Talking, which premiered on August 14, 1978. She also hosted the local version of Dialing for Dollars there as well.

Television

In 1983, Winfrey relocated to Chicago to host WLS-TV's low-rated half-hour morning talk show, AM Chicago. The first episode aired on January 2, 1984. Within months after Winfrey took over, the show went from last place in the ratings to overtaking Donahue as the highest rated talk show in Chicago. The movie critic Roger Ebert persuaded her to sign a syndication deal with King World. Ebert predicted that she would generate 40 times as much revenue as his television show, At the Movies.[34] It was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, expanded to a full hour, and broadcast nationally beginning September 8, 1986.[35] Winfrey's syndicated show brought in double Donahue's national audience, displacing Donahue as the number one day-time talk show in America. Their much publicized contest was the subject of enormous scrutiny. Time magazine wrote, "Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey's swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk. As interviewers go, she is no match for, say, Phil Donahue [...] What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, robust humor and, above all empathy. Guests with sad stories to tell are apt to rouse a tear in Oprah's eye [...] They, in turn, often find themselves revealing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience. It is the talk show as a group therapy session."[36] TV columnist Howard Rosenberg said, "She's a roundhouse, a full course meal, big, brassy, loud, aggressive, hyper, laughable, lovable, soulful, tender, low-down, earthy and hungry. And she may know the way to Phil Donahue's jugular."[37] Newsday's Les Payne observed, "Oprah Winfrey is sharper than Donahue, wittier, more genuine, and far better attuned to her audience, if not the world"[37] and Martha Bayles of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "It's a relief to see a gab-monger with a fond but realistic assessment of her own cultural and religious roots."[37]

In the early years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the program was classified as a tabloid talk show. In the mid 1990s Winfrey then adopted a less tabloid-oriented format, hosting shows on broader topics such as heart disease, geopolitics, spirituality and meditation and interviewing celebrities on social issues they were directly involved with, such as cancer, charity work, or substance abuse. Her final show is scheduled to air in September 2011.[38] In addition to her talk show, Winfrey also produced and co-starred in the 1989 drama miniseries The Women of Brewster Place, as well as a short-lived spin-off, Brewster Place. As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women's cable television network Oxygen. She is also the president of Harpo Productions (Oprah spelled backwards). On January 15, 2008, Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced plans to change Discovery Health Channel into a new channel called OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. It was scheduled to launch in 2009, but was delayed, and actually launched on January 1, 2011.

Other Media

Film Winfrey as Sofia in The Color Purple In 1985, Winfrey co-starred in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple as distraught housewife, Sofia. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. The film went on to become a Broadway musical which opened in late 2005, with Winfrey credited as a producer. In October 1998, Winfrey produced and starred in the film Beloved, based on Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. To prepare for her role as Sethe, the protagonist and former slave, Winfrey experienced a 24-hour simulation of the experience of slavery, which included being tied up and blindfolded and left alone in the woods. Despite major advertising, including two episodes of her talk show dedicated solely to the film, and moderate to good critical reviews, Beloved opened to poor box-office results, losing approximately $30 million. While promoting the movie, co-star Thandie Newton described Winfrey as "a very strong technical actress and it's because she's so smart. She's acute. She's got a mind like a razor blade."[50] In 2005, Harpo Productions released a film adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. The made-for-television film was based upon a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks, and starred Halle Berry in the lead female role.

In late 2008, Winfrey's company Harpo Films signed an exclusive output pact to develop and produce scripted series, documentaries and movies for HBO.[51] Oprah voiced Gussie the goose for Charlotte's Web (2006) and the voice of Judge Bumbleden in Bee Movie (2007) co-starring the voices of Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger. In 2009, Winfrey provided the voice for the character of Eudora, the mother of Princess Tiana, in Disney's The Princess and the Frog and in 2010, narrated the US version of the BBC nature program Life for Discovery.

Publishing and writing Winfrey on the cover of O, The Oprah Magazine Winfrey has co-authored five books. At the announcement of a weight loss book in 2005, co-authored with her personal trainer Bob Greene, it was said that her undisclosed advance fee had broken the record for the world's highest book advance fee, previously held by the autobiography of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.[52]

Winfrey publishes two magazines: O, The Oprah Magazine and O at Home. In 2002 Fortune called O, the Oprah Magazine the most successful start-up ever in the industry.[53] Although its circulation had declined by more than 10 percent (to 2.4 million) from 2005 to 2008,[54] the January 2009 issue was the best selling issue since 2006.[55] The audience for her magazine is considerably more upscale than for her TV show, the average reader earning US $63,000 a year (well above the median for U.S. women).[56]

Online Winfrey's company created the Oprah.com website to provide resources and interactive content relating to her shows, magazines, book club, and public charity. Oprah.com averages more than 70 million page views and more than six million users per month, and receives approximately 20,000 e-mails each week.[57] Winfrey initiated "Oprah's Child Predator Watch List", through her show and website, to help track down accused child molesters. Within the first 48 hours, two of the featured men were captured.[58]

Radio On February 9, 2006, it was announced that Winfrey had signed a three-year, $55 million contract with XM Satellite Radio to establish a new radio channel. The channel, Oprah Radio, features popular contributors to The Oprah Winfrey Show and O, The Oprah Magazine including Nate Berkus, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Bob Greene, Dr. Robin Smith and Marianne Williamson. Oprah & Friends began broadcasting at 11:00 am ET, September 25, 2006, from a new studio at Winfrey's Chicago headquarters. The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week on XM Radio Channel 156. Winfrey's contract requires her to be on the air thirty minutes a week, 39 weeks a year. The thirty-minute weekly show features Winfrey with friend Gayle King.
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Oprah Winfrey’s Surprising DNA Test
ANCESTRYDNA, LIFESTYLE, MOST POPULAR
27 May 2014
BY LESLIE LANG
When billionaire media producer Oprah Winfrey took a DNA test for the PBS show African American Lives a few years back, she learned that her DNA had three exact matches — with the Kpelle people, who lived in western Africa in what’s now Liberia; the Bamileke people in Cameroon; and a Bantu-speaking tribe in Zambia.

Like many African Americans whose genealogy is difficult to trace beyond slavery, Oprah knew little about her ancestry. She was born in Mississippi and on a previous African American Lives program, had learned that an ancestor started a school for black children after the Civil War (hearing this brought her to tears).

Try AncestryDNA®

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Harvard professor and current host of Finding Your Roots, has written about why Oprah’s DNA shows such diversity within Africa. In his book Finding Oprah’s Roots: Finding Yours, he points out that over the millennia of Africa’s history, tribes migrated across the continent or were taken captive in wars; in other words, there was a lot of movement, as happens with all peoples.

Oprah’s links to Zambia are most likely part of the Bantu migrations, he says, when a group of Bantu-speaking Africans long ago migrated out of southern Cameroon and peopled huge sections of central and southern Africa.

Combining information from Oprah’s DNA matches (both in Liberia and among the Gullah people off the coast of South Carolina) with what’s known about the history of American slavery suggests that the first slave in her ancestry was likely a woman from West Africa. Between 1801 and 1810, about 41,000 slaves came into the U.S. through the port at Charleston, South Carolina, many of them from West Africa.

Before taking the DNA test, Oprah said she didn’t believe she had any European or Native American ancestors. Her test results showed her to be correct about the European ancestry (she had 0 percent), but wrong about the Native American part (8 percent). She also learned she was 3 percent East Asian.

“I’ve got to say, when it happened to me, it was absolutely empowering to know the journey of my entire family,” Oprah said.

DNA testing has taken some amazing leaps forward since Oprah took her test. Now, the most popular tests for family history are autosomal tests, like AncestryDNA, which are tools both women and men can use to compare their DNA with others around the world and uncover tantalizing clues about the people who came before them and their journeys. This information, together with historical data found at Ancestry, can be a powerful tool to help break through difficult genealogical “brick walls.”

• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - Smart Copy: Feb 18 2019, 3:36:08 UTC
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - Smart Copy: Feb 28 2019, 0:34:22 UTC
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - Smart Copy: Feb 18 2019, 4:03:25 UTC
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - Smart Copy: Feb 28 2019, 0:40:23 UTC
• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - Copy/18783 Smart Copy: Feb 28 2019, 0:42:33 UTC