Beyoncé, Madonna, and Timothée Chalamet just became Canadian. So did millions of ordinary Americans

When Canada removed the generational limit to citizenship by descent last December, millions of Americans with Canadian ancestry became eligible to claim Canadian citizenship. Most have no idea. Neither, presumably, do some of the most famous people in the United States.

You don't need to be famous to qualify. Check your eligibility for Canadian citizenship by descent

Beyoncé is the sixth great-granddaughter of Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, the Acadian resistance leader who was expelled from Nova Scotia and led 193 refugees to Louisiana in 1765. His descendants became Cajuns. Even Beyoncé's name — Beyoncé — traces back to the Acadian family surname Beyincé. Under Bill C-3, the citizenship chain from Broussard's Nova Scotia birthplace flows forward to her.

Madonna's mother was Madonna Louise Fortin — a surname that traces nine generations back to Julien Fortin, a butcher who sailed from France to Quebec around 1650. Madonna's maternal grandparents were both Fortins, descended from French Canadians who emigrated from Quebec to Michigan in the 1880s — part of a wave of 900,000 Quebecois who crossed into the United States between 1840 and 1930.

Angelina Jolie's mother, Marcheline Bertrand, had four French-Canadian grandparents from Quebec. Genealogists have traced Jolie's ancestry through over 1,300 documented forebears, back to Zacharie Cloutier, one of the earliest French settlers in Quebec. Through those roots, Jolie is distantly related to Madonna, Céline Dion, and Justin Trudeau — all descendants of the roughly 8,500 French settlers who founded New France and whose millions of descendants now live on both sides of the border.

Matt LeBlanc played Joey Tribbiani for ten years — television's most famous Italian-American. His real surname is French for "white." His great-grandmother, Marie Marguerite Cormier, was born in Memramcook, New Brunswick. He's not the only one carrying a renamed French surname. Across the United States, Leblanc became White. Roy became King. Charpentier became Carpenter. Boisvert became Greenwood.

Timothée Chalamet's paternal grandmother was born in Brantford, Ontario. He confirmed his Canadian roots in a 2024 Nardwuar interview: "Shout out Canada, shout out North America!"

Are you next?

None of these celebrities applied for Canadian citizenship. Under the new law, they didn't have to. If you were born before December 15, 2025, and can trace a line to a Canadian ancestor, you already are one. No test. No residency. No oath.

You don't need to be famous. You just need one of these: a surname that sounds French — or one that used to. Family roots in New England, Louisiana, Michigan, or upstate New York. Older relatives who spoke French or mentioned family "from up north." A DNA test showing French-Canadian ancestry.

Nearly 10 million Americans report French or French-Canadian ancestry on the census — and the true number is likely far higher, since most families assimilated and stopped identifying with their roots generations ago. Many of them share ancestors with the celebrities above.

These celebrities didn't need fame to qualify. They needed a family tree. So do you.

It takes 30 seconds to find out. Check if you qualify at CanadaVisa's citizenship by descent calculator.