Keira Knightley
Knightley in 2011, photo by Featureflash / Shutterstock.com
Birth Name: Keira Christina Knightley
Place of Birth: Richmond Upon Thames, Surrey, England, U.K.
Date of Birth: 26 March, 1985
Ethnicity: English, Scottish, Welsh
Keira Knightley is a British actress. She is known for her films Pirates of the Caribbean, Love Actually, King Arthur (2004), Domino, Pride & Prejudice, Never Let Me Go, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Anna Karenina (2012), The Imitation Game, and Silent Night (2021), and television’s Doctor Zhivago (2002).
Keira is the daughter of actress and playwright Sharman MacDonald and actor Will Knightley (Kevin William Knightley). Her father is English. Her mother, who was born in Glasgow, Scotland, is of Scottish and Welsh ancestry. Her brother, Caleb Knightley, has also worked in film. Keira is married to musician James Righton, with whom she has two children. She has also been known as Keira Christina Righton.
She was meant to be named Kiera, after Russian figure skater Kira Ivanova. Her mother misspelt the name when registering her birth.
Keira’s paternal grandfather was William Knightley (the son of Frederick William Knightley and Caroline Margaret Pepper). Keira’s grandfather William was born in West Ham, Essex, England. Frederick was the son of Charles Knightley and Sarah Ann Astle. Caroline was the daughter of John Pepper and Bridget.
Keira’s paternal grandmother was named Violet Grace Jones.
Keira’s maternal grandfather was Joseph Henry Hosgood MacDonald (the son of William Hearson H. MacDonald and Mary McDonald). Joseph was born in England, and had Scottish ancestry.
Keira’s maternal grandmother was named Janet Rewat Williams. Janet had Welsh ancestry.
Sources: Genealogies of Keira Knightley – http://www.geni.com
http://gw.geneanet.org
Marriage record of Keira’s paternal grandparents, William Knightley and Violet Grace Jones – https://www.familysearch.org
Death record of Keira’s paternal grandmother, Violet Grace (Jones) Knightley – https://www.familysearch.org
Article about Keira’s mother’s family – http://www.dailymail.co.uk
your face is strange
she looks like if she had mediterranean roots, like spanish or italian
she dont have blue or green eyes
she sometimes looks like asian
she is similar to catherine zeta jones that also looks like mediterranean girl
du bist lacherlich.
Paternal grandmother: Violet Grace Jones (1907-1997), Woolwich, London was the daughter of Herbert William Ashton Jones (1868-1930) and Harriet Ann Hogg (1869-1937). Herbert was the son of William Ashton Jones and Fanny Jones. Harriet was the daughter of Robert Samuel Hogg (1833-1881) and Elizabeth Mary Ann Johnson (1834-1917). Violet Grace Jones was for the most part 100% English ancestry.
Well Jones and Hogg are usually not English surnames, rather Welsh and Scottish, respectively.
As an Irishman I feel ashamed not knowing the surnames of this region.I gotta study up on this! Anyway, all of Violet’s grandparents were born in England, at least.
Jones is the quintessential Welsh surname: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Jones_surname_distribution_map_in_Britain%2C_Ireland_and_Mann.png
While it is true that Jones is a very popular – the most popular, in fact – surname in Wales, it’s not really correct to say that it’s usually not an English surname. It is quite popular in England, to the point that you can’t simply assume someone is Welsh because they have that last name.
In fact, Jones is an English surname that became popular in Wales, not the other way around.
As I recall, there were two Violet Grace Jones born in the same year, and that’s the wrong grandmother they have up there on a lot of genealogy sites. Knightley’s was born in February and died in 1997, while the wrong one was born in October and died in 1989. Perhaps Knightley’s grandmother wasn’t even born in England.
Dark eyes and pale skin = exotic and not possibly British?
People here are moronic.
Many of the British (English, Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish are dark- skinned and favor her sort of looks. She’s not Continental European at all. She’s proud to be 100% British Isles. What you wrote is rather “moronic”.
What a lie.
Her ancestry is nearly one hundred percent on the money as here-outlined.