Red Sox Player Mookie Betts Reveals His Distant Relationship With Meghan Markle

With the Red Sox and Yankees wrapping up their historic London series on Sunday, most eyes are on the stories that have been told this weekend. Away from the box scores and fanfare on the field, there was quite a lot of buzz in the clubhouse thanks to the surprise arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on Saturday.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry met with both teams in their clubhouse, receiving gifts for new baby Archie and greeting the players before the game. Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts was especially pleased to meet the Duchess. It turns out they're practically family.

Betts learned back in May that he was distantly related to the Duchess, sharing ancestors from the same part of Alabama according to The Boston Globe.

"I saw on television that they were getting married. But I had no idea we were related," Betts told the Boston Globe. "That's not something you expect to hear, but it's interesting."

The connection was revealed by genealogist Jim McNiff. He took up the study as a hobby and was behind a series of family trees published by the Globe in 2017 for Patriots icons Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. He started in on Betts in 2019, finding that his line and Markle intersect nearly 150 years ago according to The Globe.

So I wrote this story — https://t.co/y2pdVa9DtD — a year ago about Mookie Betts being distantly related to Meghan Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex.

They met today and Mookie told her about the story. Then they hugged.

What a thing. pic.twitter.com/I1L7UqNYwr

— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) June 29, 2019

The Red Sox star's connection to Markle comes from the 1870 Federal Census according to Peter Abraham at the Globe. In Madison County, Alabama, there were two names out of 22 Betts that stood out: 17-year-old Joseph Betts and 14-year-old Jacob Betts. Both lived separately and most of the residents of the area were descendants of slaves owned by Elisha Betts.

While it can't be determined if the two boys were 100 percent related, McNiff found that Joseph is the great-great-grandfather of Mookie Betts, while Jacob Betts was the great-great-great grandfather to Meghan Markle.

"I know from family stories that our relatives were from Virginia and settled in Alabama. That's were I'm from," Betts told The Globe. "There were Betts all over that area. They worked on farms, things like that."

After learning the news, Betts was reportedly very interested in meeting Markle and talking to her about it.

"That would be cool, to meet her. I wonder if she's a baseball fan"; Betts told Abraham.

Judging from the photos from this weekend's series, the pair met and shared a big hug. No word on if they had time to discuss family history, but Betts did get to meet some "family" on his trip. Just happened to also be in the "royal" variety.