Profile Text
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 and model 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, Polish 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 Delightt/Delight Jones (the son of Caesar/James Jones and Susannah/Susanna Burgess). Rashida’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.
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, Belarus, and Alice from Brest/Brześć, Poland. 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 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 Rashida Jones – https://www.geni.com
Genealogy of Rashida Jones (focusing on her mother’s side) – http://www.wikitree.com