Taylor Kitsch

"Lone Survivor" New York City Premiere - Arrivals

Kitsch in 2013, photo by Prphotos.com

Place of Birth: Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

Date of Birth: April 8, 1981

Ethnicity: German, English, Scottish, other

Taylor Kitsch is a Canadian actor and model. His roles include the films John Tucker Must Die, Snakes on a Plane, The Covenant, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Bang Bang Club, John Carter, Battleship, Savages, Lone Survivor, The Grand Seduction, American Assassin, Only the Brave, and 21 Bridges, and television’s Friday Night Lights, The Normal Heart, True Detective, Waco, The Defeated, and The Terminal List.

Taylor’s paternal grandfather was Rudolf/Rudolph Kitsch (the son of Philip Andrew Kitsch and Elizabeth/Elisabeth Caroline Phillips). Rudolf was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, to parents of ethnic German descent, from Zelenyi Yar, Ukraine. Philip was the son of Johann Philipp Kitsch and Katherina/Katharina Maria Elisabetha Schneider. Taylor’s great-grandmother Elizabeth was the daughter of August Phillips and Caroline Keib.

Taylor’s paternal grandmother was Patricia Margaret Paisley (the daughter of William Paisley and Barbara McKrindle). Patricia was born in Kelowna, British Columbia, to Scottish parents. William was born in Maybole, Ayrshire. Barbara was the daughter of John Young and Jane Smith.

Taylor’s maternal grandfather was named Ken Green.

Taylor’s maternal grandmother was named Marjorie.

Sources: Genealogy of Taylor Kitsch – https://www.geni.com

Taylor’s paternal grandfather, Rudolf/Rudolph Kitsch, on the 1926 Canada Prairie Provinces Census – https://www.familysearch.org

26 Responses

  1. phaedra says:

    Looks Slavic.

  2. Greyface says:

    His ancestry MUST be confirmed, he is extremely good looking

  3. Freerk says:

    “I can’t tell how ethnically different Austrians are from Germans. Likely, not significantly (if at all, actually).”

    Depends on your definition of ethnicity and how precisely you want to describe. You could say Austrians are like Germans and are right (as long as no Austrian or German listens …), but on the other hand you are totally wrong. Even the Germans are no homogenous group. For a Northern German, Austrians are a different race, for a Southern German, Northern Germans are …

    Austrians are more mixed with Slavs, Hungarians, Romanic peoples and an underlying layer of Celts (like the Southern Germans) … The Bavarians are nearly the same mixture and ethnically and culturally strongly linked to the Austrians, but the Saxons are completely not.

    Historically and politically, they stick together since 2000 years (especialy the Bavarians), and of course, they share the same language, though the dialects are different – I, as a Nothern German, would hardly understand an Austrian better than a Swedish when he or she talks in dialect.

    It’s like a New Yorker compared to a man from Wheatland, Wyoming, who both are “Americans”.

    • Fatmonkey says:

      Thank you on your information sharing. I always imagined (and, after all, happened to read a great deal about such state of affairs on many internet forums) that Austrians and Germans are the same ethnic group divided with political, religious and cultural barriers.

      I used to compare the Austrian-German parallel to the one between Croats and Serbs. I am Serbian, at least mostly, but I don’t know much about my family tree: in some distant, yet uncharted stages of it, I don’t think I’d feel surprised if I found not only certain Croatian ancestry, but also Austrian, Italian, Saxon-German (many Saxon gold miners used to colonise the 13th century Serbia, invited by King Uroš I). Simply, the Balkans have been a vivacious melting pot for all different kinds of ethnic groups huddling in vicinity, mostly looking for fertile lands, but also fleeing from Mongolian, Tatar or Ottoman Turkish conquest. E.g. the multitude of Serbs living in Austria today are the descendants of the refugees from the Turkish invasion of Kosovo and Eastern Montenegro.

      Serbs, generally, tend to have soft spot for Austrians because of the centuries of coexistence – so among the, as you said, Slavic genetic component of an Austrian’s ancestry data may be likely to be a bit Serbian. The irreparable ravages of the First World War and consequent breakage of that solemn, allied battle-hardened union were just unnecessary.

      • Freerk says:

        If you had Saxon ancestors, we could be relatives :)

        The interesting thing about Europeans (especially Middle Europeans) is what (and to which degree) are the components of your DNA. We all are a hotchpotch of probably whatever moved through Europe during the last 3,000 years. O_o

        • Freerk says:

          I just looked at Wikipedia – the Saxons you mentioned were probably from the state of (Upper) Saxony, which is not related to the tribe of the Saxons in Lower Saxony. I should have known – you said “gold miners”, and we have no mountains (not even real hills) where I come from … :D

        • Fatmonkey says:

          I’d say that each nation in Europe is genetically/ ethnically intermixed with its closest neighbours. If you are German, odds are that among your ancestors, at least if you care to go far enough, will pop up some French, Italian, Dutch, or Polish. A Russian is likely to be of partial e.g. Circassian, Belarus, Tatar, Mongolian,… descent. Among the non-Serbian ancestors of Serbs would be Greeks, Romanians, Vlachs, Albanians… Among the non-English ancestors of the English: the Irish, Scots, French, a certain Dane or Norwegian here and there… Etc, etc…

          Mind you, if you happen to discover some noble or even distant royal descent, you may find out surprisingly diverse range of European peoples of whom you could descend. E.g. a German nobleman, Ulrich X, count of Helfenstein, married a Bosnian princess (of Serbian descent), Marija Kotromanic in the mid-14th century. They had nine children, six sons and three daughters, and they were the ancestors of quite a great deal of European nobility and monarchs (almost every current European royal family has them in their family tree). The exact number of their descendants today is not known (the public family trees only show the descendancy of two of Ulrich and Marija’s children), but I’m guessing they measure in hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions.

          http://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=flakey&id=I555173763

          • follers says:

            Fatmonkey, as you can see, I’ve uncovered that Kitsch’s maternal grandparents were named Ken Green and Marjorie. Perhaps you can find something more. Kitsch’s uncle was also named Ken Green.

          • Freerk says:

            “If you are German, odds are that among your ancestors, at least if you care to go far enough, will pop up some French, Italian, Dutch, or Polish.”

            Generally I agree, but not in my case … Or I have to go very far … I come from a region far away from any point where it’s at, what we call in German the ass of the world. Looking at my family tree, ALL my ancestors since 1700 were born within a triangle of about 15 kilometers … :(

            Even when my son was to be born in Middle Germany where I live now, I learned that the family of his mother comes from the same town than that of mine. O_o So with a low amount of foreign DNA, he looks like a clone of my father …

          • Freerk says:

            “If you are German, odds are that among your ancestors (…) will pop up some French, Italian, Dutch, or Polish.”

            Don’t mix nationality and ethnicity. Ethnically, the Dutch are nearer related to the Northern Germans than the Southern Germans are … the people in the eastern part of the Netherlands even speak a Lower Saxon dialect. And the Frisians (of whom I am one) live on both sides of the border. So according to the nation I am a German, but ethnically I am … both? or nothing of these two?

            In Eastern Germany, many people are of Slavic (or mixed, of course) descent, but most of these Slavs never were Polish, while many Polish migrated to the industrial region of Western Germany …

            The core of your statement, nevertheless, is correct: All people in Europe are mixed in some way.

          • Tux says:

            Italians I doubt that. Germans and Italians aren’t even in the same ballpark on genetic maps. Germans mostly overlap with the English, Scandinavians and the Dutch genetically. All southern european countries are far away from Germany.

          • caligurl2 says:

            LOL troll detected, nice try but ethnic Russians have zero to do genetically with mongolians, tatars or circassians. Why would Russians have Mongolian ancestors? because of the mongolian empire? They did not settle down, the conquered and they pressed on. There is nothing in any genetic test done on ethnic Russians tracing them back with Mongolians, or Circassians. If anyone is related to Circassians in Europe it’s the southern europeans. Circassians are a mediterranean people. Russians are not mediterranean infact they’re more blue eyed and blonde than the British are same with the Polish and BOTH the Russians and Poles overlap closer with Norwegians than even the British or Germans do.

          • caligurl2 says:

            Here is where Circassians are located. As you can see nowhere near Russians. Russians overlap closer to Scandinavians than even the so called anglo saxon Brits and Germans do.

            http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/wp-content/blogs.dir/461/files/2012/04/i-200071840203ea7ce070032e2c202005-fig1mapagain.png

  4. Capricious says:

    No Jewish?

  5. Fatmonkey says:

    The Kitsches currently living in Kelowna, British Columbia, are of Austrian heritage. I can’t tell how ethnically different Austrians are from Germans. Likely, not significantly (if at all, actually).

    Sources:

    http://www.tribalpages.com/tribe/familytree?uid=kitch&surname=Kitsch
    http://www.geni.com/people/Georg-Jakob-Kitsch/6000000007426359766

    • follers says:

      Do you know the names of Taylor’s ancestors? I.e., did you connect this Kitsch family to Taylor?

      • Fatmonkey says:

        Sadly, no. I spent ages researching Taylor’s ancestry as well. Makes you wonder, a celebrity barely over thirty of whose family tree nothing is known whatsoever.

    • bablah says:

      I hate to bring this up again, but if I’m understanding the tree posted here, the Kitsch family ultimately comes from Palatinate (as do most other Germans in Eastern Europe), not Austria proper. So should it be Austrian or German? They were of Austrian nationality, yes, but they all called themselves German.

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