Tommy Lee
Lee in 2006, photo by s_bukley/Bigstock.com
Birth Name: Thomas Lee Bass
Place of Birth: Athens, Greece
Date of Birth: October 3, 1962
Ethnicity:
*father – English, some Irish and French
*mother – Greek
Tommy Lee is an American musician. He is a founding member of, and drummer for, heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. Other members of the band are Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, and, previously, Mick Mars.
Tommy was born in Athens, Greece, and was raised in California, U.S. His mother, Vassiliki “Voula” (Papadimitriou), was Greek, from Athens. His father, David Oliver Bass, was an American, who was born in Taconite, Itasca, Minnesota, and had English, and some Irish and French, ancestry.
Tommy is married to actress and internet personality Brittany Furlan. He has two children, models Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Lee, with his former wife, Canadian-born actress and model Pamela Anderson.
Tommy’s paternal grandfather was John S. Bass (the son of Joseph Josiah Bass and Alice Eva Oliver). John was born in Florence, Florence Co., South Carolina. Joseph was the son of John Calvin Bass and Nancy/Nannie S. McLeandon/McLeanon. Alice was the daughter of Samuel Preston Oliver and Harriett Rebecca Bates.
Tommy’s paternal grandmother was Julia/Juliet Esther Sanders (the daughter of Henry Sanders and May Esther Patrick). Julia was born in Milwaukee, Milwaukee Co., Wisconsin. Henry was born in New York, the son of James F. Sanders, who was born in France, and of Julia Sullivan, who was Irish. May was the daughter of Harvey S. Patrick and Esther Elizabeth Edwards.
Tommy’s father is descended from John Bass, who was born in Suffolk, Virginia. John was the son of William Basse and Catherine/Katherine Lanier/Lanyere. William was the son of John Basse, an English immigrant, and of Elizabeth Nansemond, who was Native American, and a princess of the Nansemond tribe. Catherine’s ancestry is disputed. Some sources state that she too was a Nansemond Native American, while others say that she was born to English immigrants. While some genealogies list her as the daughter of John Lanier and Lucreece Bassano, this is not the case, as their only daughter, Katherine, died as an infant.
Sources: Genealogy of Tommy Lee (focusing on his father’s side) – https://famouskin.com
Genealogy of Tommy’s paternal great-great-great-grandfather, Josiah Bass – http://www.wikitree.com
Genealogy of Tommy’s paternal great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Arthur Bass – https://www.geni.com
English, some Irish —> English, some Irish and French, at least 1/1024 Powhatan Native American
Henry Sanders was born in New York to James Frederick Sanders, who was French, and Julia O’Connoll, who was Irish.
Tommy’s father is descended from John Bass, who was born in Suffolk, Virginia. He was the son of William Basse and Catherine/Katherine Lanier/Lanyere. William was the son of John Basse, an English immigrants, and Elizabeth Nansemond, who was Native American, and a princess of the Nansemond tribe. Catherine’s ancestry is disputed. Some sources states that she too was a Nansemond Native American, while others say that she was born to English immigrants. While some genealogies lists her as the daughter of John Lanier and Lucreece Bassano (who were both English), this is not the case, as their only daughter named Katherine died as an infant.
This makes Tommy of at least 1/2048 Native American descent.
Genealogy of Tommy’s great-great-great-grandfather, Josiah Bass – http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Bass-Family-Tree-2631
Genealogy of Tommy’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Arthur Bass – https://www.geni.com/people/Arthur-Bass/6000000004089212855
He is also related – although very loosely – with the Jordan family of Jamestowne. His ancestress, Mary Jordan, wife of Nathaniel Bass, was a daughter of Samuel Jordan, the famous colonist, legislator and planter, who owned the “Jordan’s Journey”.
A tradition has it the Basses themselves were originally French Huguenots, who went to England and then to the U.S. Maybe that, too, could be added, though I don’t know how sustained it is.
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Basse_Nathaniel_bap_1589-1654
Tommy Lee is related to John Adams (U.S. President), they both descend from the Sicilian-born Domenico Buscemi/Buschier and his French wife Genevieve (who lived in the 1500s)
Tommy genealogy: http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Basse-Family-Tree-5
Pres. Adams genealogy: http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Bass-Family-Tree-3
@madman
are you sure that John Lanier and Lucreece Bassano were “both English”? rather of French and Italian descent.
still a valid question
Why can’t you just look them up yourself? That’s what I would’ve done. But to answer your question, no, I’m not sure. In fact, while they were both English-born, they probably had other ancestry too. However…
1. They are way to remote to care about.
2. I explicitly wrote that they weren’t Tommy’s ancestors in the first place.
So I have no idea why you even bring this up.
_ But to answer your question, no, I’m not sure. In fact, while they were both English-born, they probably had other ancestry too.
That’s what I wanted to know.
However until some years ago they weren’t considered “too remote” by the policy of the site
There’s no policy. People can submit comments or profiles with whatever they want in it. It’s not like Follers or Ethnic checks every profile submittet so that it only includes 1/1024 of the ancestry. I know there’s people here listed as things as far back as 1/16384.
That said, I think it’s good that the site has a general limit.
Tommy’s mother was Vassiliki “Voula” Papadimitriou
… And French, as well. This is Nicholas Lanier (1544-1610), the paternal grandfather of John Lanier, Lucreece Bassano’s husband, whose heritage I mistakenly thought of as English.
A family tree of Tommy Lee’s I stumbled upon:
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=dowfam3&id=I115436
If that one’s correct, he’s also English, Irish, and Italian (through his ancestress, Lucreece Bassano). I’ll add up some more if I happen to discover anything.
Thank you. Is there any evidence that Tommy has Welsh ancestry?
By now, I found none. But I will inform you the instant I do.
Note that I found certain discrepancies regarding the heritage of William Bass’s wife, Catherine Lanier. On some places she is identified as the daughter of John Lanier and Lucreece Bassano, and as such, is a full-fledged European. However, I later discovered that certain contemporary records list Catherine as a “full blooded Nansemond Indian”, like e.g. the following links:
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=llclements-clem&id=I2257
https://southernrootsandbranches.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/john-basse-a-story-of-the-new-world/
That said, Catherine Lanier is of Native American descent, that is, a christened and “renamed” Indian woman,
Nevertheless, Tommy Lee STILL IS of confirmed French and Italian descent. The certain source of that evidence, rather than to Catherine Lanier, leads to William Bass’s great-grandmother, Mary Buschier, who was the daughter of Dominick Buschier, born in Sicily, Italy, and Jane Genevieve, born in Rouen, France.
And if that wasn’t perplexing enough, here are some links testifying (I can’t tell how truthfully) that the very Bass family originated in France, rather than in England, making Tommy’s direct lineage French:
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/p/r/i/Ralph-Carson-Price/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0298.html
http://shakerwoodsfarm.com/familyhistory/bass.htm
http://www.coonfamily.info/tree/individual.php?pid=IP3062&ged=White
http://archive.org/stream/SarahsStory_263/MicrosoftWord-FullFinalWc4_djvu.txt