Rashida Jones

Jones in 2011, kathclick/bigstock.com

Birth Name: Rashida Leah Jones

Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California, United States

Date of Birth: February 25, 1976

Ethnicity:
*father – African-American, with some English, Scottish, and Welsh
*mother – Ashkenazi Jewish

Rashida Jones is an American actress, writer, and producer. Her roles include I Love You, Man, Our Idiot Brother, Boston Public, The Office, and On the Rocks.

She is the daughter of music producer Quincy Jones and actress and model Peggy Lipton. She is a sister of actress Kidada Jones and a half-sister of model Kenya Kinski-Jones. She has a son with her partner, musician Ezra Koenig.

Rashida’s father was mainly of African-American [West African/Central African] ancestry, with some English, Scottish, and Welsh, heritage. Rashida’s mother was Jewish, of Russian Jewish, Belarusian Jewish, and Latvian Jewish descent. Rashida was raised Jewish, studied Hinduism, and is now a practicing Jew.

Rashida’s paternal grandfather was Quincy Delight/Delightt Jones (the son of Caesar Jones and Susannah/Susanna Burgess). Rashida’s grandfather Quincy was born in South Carolina, and was a semi-pro baseball player. Caesar and Susannah were both black. Susannah was the daughter of West Burgess and Adele, or of Osborne Burgess and Elizabeth.

Rashida’s paternal grandmother was Sarah Frances Wells (the daughter of Love Adam Wells and Mary Belle Lanier). Sarah was born in Mississippi. Love, who was black, was the son of Nelson Wells and Sarah Campbell. Mary’s father, James Balance Lanier, was white, and had mostly English, as well as Scottish and Welsh, ancestry. Mary’s mother, Cordelia Dickson, was black.

Rashida’s maternal grandfather was Harold Arlen Lipton (the son of Max Lipschitz/Lipton and Alice Goldfarb). Harold was born in The Bronx, New York City. Max and Alice were Jewish emigrants, Max from Slutsk and Alice from Brest, both in Belarus, then in the Russian Empire. Max was the son of Harris/Harold Lipschitz and Rebecca Leah Pitovsky/Witkowsky. Alice was the daughter of Aaron Goldfarb and Frieda/Freude Bass/Bab.

Rashida’s maternal grandmother was Rita Hetty Benson/Rosenberg (the daughter of Hyman Rosenberg and Jeanie “Jane” Benson). Rita was born in Dublin, Ireland. Hyman was a Russian Jewish emigrant, who was born in Saga, Province of Kemerovo, the son of Marko Benjamin Rosenberg and Sarah Hahn. Jeanie was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, to Jewish parents from Latvia and/or Kaunas, Lithuania, Benjamin Joseph Bensohn/Benson, from Kovno, and Sophia Winestein/Weinstein.

A DNA test whose results were displayed on the show African American Lives (2006) stated that Rashida’s father’s, Quincy Jones’s, genetic ancestry was:

*66% Sub-Saharan African
*34% European

In his 2009 book about the show, In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. wrote that Quincy’s African DNA matched the Tikar people of Cameroon, the Sukuma people of Tanzania, the Tonga people of Mozambique, and the Fang people of Equatorial Guinea.

Sources: Genealogy of Rashida Jones – https://www.geni.com

Genealogy of Rashida Jones (focusing on her mother’s side) – http://www.wikitree.com