Catherine Zeta Jones Family History

Catherine Zeta Jones was born on September 26th, 1969 to Dai and Patricia Jones in Swansea, Wales.

At that time Dai was the owner of a small bakery in a poor neighborhood of Swansea and his wife made clothes for their neighbors to help her husband.  In the early 1980’s they were lucky enough to win £100,000 in a national bingo competition.  This enabled them to move to Mumbles in the outskirts of town and to open a confectionery.

The bingo money also enabled them to pay for their daughter’s dance and ballet classes.  Catherine had been hyper-active as a child and loved singing and dancing in front of the mirror.  In 1983 when she was fourteen The Pajama Game film crew arrived in Swansea.  Catherine went for an audition and was given a part. After the filming was completed she was invited back to London.

Her acting career culminated in London with the part of Mariette in the TV series The Darling Buds of May.  This show lasted from 1991 to 1993 and it and she became hugely popular with the British public.

However, not content with being typecast as the pretty British girl, Catherine struck out for Hollywood.  Success here was slow.  Her first major role came in 1998 with The Mask of Zorro.  Four years later she starred in the musical Chicago, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.  And in 2000 she had married the Hollywood star Michael Douglas.  She was big time now.

Catherine’s Ancestry

Catherine has Welsh ancestry on her father’s side (going back more than 200 years in Swansea) and Welsh, Irish and English ancestry on her mother’s.  She does not have, as some have suggested, Greek or Spanish ancestry.

Her Catherine name came from her Irish maternal grandmother, Catherine O’Callaghan.

Zeta was also a grandmother name, but on her father’s side.  The story was that her grandmother was named after a copper ship on which her father sailed from Swansea in the 19th century.  Catherine was not born with that name.  Apparently she adopted it as a young actress/singer so as to stand out from other young women who had the same Jones name.

Her Swansea Lineage

The poet Dylan Thomas described his hometown of Swansea in south Wales as an “ugly lovely town.”  The town was ugly because of its long industrial history. From the early 1700’s to the late 1800’s, Swansea was the world’s leading copper-smelting area.  Its port was also a hive of activity.  And the population expanded rapidly, attracting migrants from elsewhere in Wales and further afield.

Catherine’s paternal line looks like it began with a John Jones who was born in Swansea in 1786.  There followed three generations of George Frederick Joneses over the 19th century until we come to:

• Bertram Jones (born in 1912), Catherine’s grandfather
• and David (Dai) Jones (born in 1946), Catherine’s father.

Dai married Patricia Fair in 1966 and Catherine was the second of their three children.

Catherine Zeta Jones’ Family Tree

• George Jones from Swansea (b. 1823) m. Harriet Bell (b. 1822)
• – Caroline Jones (1849-1930) m. William Denman
• – George Jones (1852-1925)

• George Jones m. Sarah Thomas (b. 1861) in Swansea
• – Annie Jones (1881-1914)
• – George Jones (1885-1951)

• George Jones m. Edith Johns (1891-1972) in Swansea in 1909
• – Wilfred Jones (1910-1972)
• – Bertram Jones (1912-1970)
• – Phyllis Jones (1914-1999)
• – George Jones (1916-1996)
• – Ethel Jones (1920-1993)
• – Terrance Jones (1928-2003)

• Bertram Jones m. Zeta Davies (1917-2008) in Swansea
• – David (Dai) Jones (b. 1946)

• William Fair (1921-2000) m. Catherine O’Callaghan from Ireland (1922-2001) in Swansea
• – Patricia Fair

• David (Dai) Jones m. Patricia Fair in 1966
• – David Jones (b. 1967)
• – Catherine (Zeta) Jones (b. 1969)
• – Lyndon Jones (b. 1972)