Profile Text
Kinski-Jones in 2014, photo by kathclick /Bigstock.com
Birth Name: Kenya Julia Niambi Sarah Jones
Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California, United States
Date of Birth: February 9, 1993
Ethnicity: * father – African-American, with some English, Scottish, and Welsh * mother – Polish, German
Kenya Kinski-Jones is an American fashion model.
She is the daughter of German actress and model Nastassja Kinski and American music, film, and television producer and instrumentalist Quincy Jones ; and the granddaughter of German actor Klaus Kinski . Among her paternal half-siblings are actress and model Kidada Jones and actress and writer Rashida Jones . Her maternal half-sister is American model and actress Sonja Kinski . Her half-aunt is German actress Pola Kinski, and her half-uncle is French-American actor Nikolai Kinski .
Kenya is married to actor and model Will Peltz .
Kenya’s paternal grandfather was Quincy Delightt/Delight Jones (the son of Caesar/James Jones and Susannah/Susanna Burgess). Kenya’s grandfather Quincy was born in South Carolina, to parents who were also born there. He was a semi-pro baseball player. Susannah was the daughter of West Burgess and Adele, or of Osborne Burgess and Elizabeth.
Kenya’s paternal grandmother was Sarah Frances Wells (the daughter of Love Adam Wells and Mary Bell/Belle Lanier). Sarah was born in Mississippi. Love was born in Mississippi, the son of Nelson Wells and Sarah Campbell. Mary was born in Mississippi. Her father, James Balance Lanier, white, and had mostly English, as well as Scottish and Welsh, ancestry. Mary’s mother, Cordelia Dickson, was black.
Kenya’s maternal grandfather was Klaus Kinski (born Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski, the son of Bruno Carl Julius Nakszynski and Susanne Eva Lutze). Klaus was born in Zoppot, Free City of Danzig, now Sopot, Poland, and had German, and some Polish, ancetry. Bruno was a pharmacist and opera singer, and was the son of Ferdinand Julius Nakszynski and Anna Clara Schneider. Kenya’s great-grandmother Susanne was a nurse, and was the daughter of a pastor.
Kenya’s maternal grandmother is actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki. Ruth is German, by either birth or citizenship, although Tocki is often a Polish surname.
A DNA test whose results were displayed on the show African American Lives (2006) stated that Kenya’s father Quincy’s genetic ancestry was:
*61% Sub-Saharan African *34% European
*61% 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 Kenya Kinski-Jones – https://www.geni.com
Obituaries of Kenya’s maternal grandfather, Klaus Kinski – http://www.nytimes.com https://www.findagrave.com