Two of America’s pop-culture icons — music superstar Madonna and TV powerhouse Ellen DeGeneres — are distant cousins with Canadian roots, according to the Toronto-based online genealogy service Ancestry.ca.

 Researchers have discovered that the two women are 11th cousins with a common “10th great-grandfather” — Martin Aucoin of France — whose daughters emigrated to Nova Scotia in the early 1600s.

 The daughters, Jeanne and Michele, were found to be matriarchs of French-Canadian clans that remained in this country for many generations.

 ”DeGeneres’s family left Canada in the late 1700s when her fifth great-grandfather, Joseph Martin, relocated to Louisiana,” says Ancestry.ca. “It wasn’t until the late 1870s that Madonna’s second great-grandmother, Emilie Daniel, left Quebec” for Michigan, which the singer considers her home state.

DeGeneres’ ancestors appear likely to have been victims of the 18th-century Acadian Expulsion, the British government’s forcible removal of tens of thousands of French-speaking residents of the Maritimes during the fall of New France.

Many of the deported families relocated to Louisiana, the source of that region’s vibrant Cajun culture — a name derived from the word “Acadian.”

“It’s rare to discover that two icons are related, but when they are similar in their successes and even their interests, it makes the discovery even more fascinating,” said Lesley Anderson, a genealogist at Ancestry.ca. “They are the same age, they are both published authors who have gone on tour, and are both recognized internationally for their impressive dance moves. And now that Ellen is on American Idol, they are both entrenched in the music industry as well.”

Anastasia Tyler, a genealogist with Ancestry.com. — the company’s Utah-based headquarters — added: “Fun stories and amazing surprises like this can be found in everyone’s family tree. You never know what adventures, heroes — even superstars — you might find until you dig into your family’s roots.”

 Last June, Ancestry.ca announced a genealogy research partnership with Library and Archives Canada and revealed previously unknown details about the family backgrounds of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and B.C.-born Baywatch actor Pamela Anderson.

In unveiling its new family history database at the time, Ancestry.ca highlighted the fact that Harper’s great-grandfather, Joseph Harper, was a salesman in 1911 living in Westmorland, N.B., and that Anderson — “arguably Canada’s most famous blond” — has Scandinavian roots, tracing her Canadian origins to the 1908 immigration from Finland of her great-grandfather Juho Hyytiainen.

Thanks Vancouver Sun.