Hilaria Baldwin has claimed that she hails from Spain, but a genealogist has weighed in to confirm that Boston-born Hillary Thomas-Hayward is anything but Spanish.
Genealogist Dr. Adina Newman says there is ‘no Spain in sight’ after tracing Hilaria’s lineage back to England, Ireland, Germany, Quebec, modern day Slovakia and finally settling in New England.
Nowhere in her family tree does the mother-of-five have any ties to Spain, with the only connection being vacationing in the European country during her childhood and her parents retiring to the island of Majorca in 2011.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Dr. Adina said ‘nothing led me to Spain’ after fleshing out a ‘dirty tree’ going back centuries on her Hilaria’s maternal side.
This comes as DailyMail.com has discovered Hilaria was still embracing her true self on her MySpace page, showing sultry selfies and proudly displaying her given name Hillary Hayward-Thomas.
DailyMail.com has discovered Hilaria proudly displayed her given name Hillary Hayward-Thomas on her MySpace page alongside sultry selfies
On an old MySpace page unearthed by DailyMail.com, Hilaria used her given name Hillary, which she attempted to explain by saying she used Hillary in the US and Hilaria in Spain
In 2014 Hilaria posted this photo with a flamenco fan and posing in front of a torrero statue with the caption: ‘Hoping one day we all just dance with the bulls’
Hilaria’s parents, although they retired to Spain in 2011, spent a majority of their lives in the US
Hilaria’s parents, although they retired to Spain in 2011, spent a majority of their lives in the US. While Hilaria has long described her mother as Spanish, records revealed that Dr. Kathryn Hayward is in fact a fourth-generation Massachusetts resident.
According to Dr. Adina, ‘Hilaria’s maternal ancestry appears to hail from England, Ireland, Germany, Quebec (French), and modern day Slovakia.’
Dr. Adina has traced her roots back centuries to the first Haywards who arrived from England to Connecticut ‘sometime in the 1870s, but no later than around 1874’.
Genealogist Dr. Adina Newman says there is ‘no Spain in sight’ after tracing her lineage back to England, Ireland, Germany, Quebec, and Slovakia
Her mother, Dr. Hayward, was born in New York. Her parents and Hilaria’s maternal grandparents, Charles B. Hayward and Irene Webler were both born in Massachusetts.
Hilaria’s roots are so deep in New England, her 11th great-grandfather Jon Brockett was a founder of New Haven, Connecticut, according to Dr. Adina.
Her attorney father David Thomas has even deeper ties to the US, having lived here since before the American Revolution.
On her father’s side, Hilaria’s grandmother was from Kansas, according to a marriage certificate.
Ironically, genealogy appears to be important to Hilaria’s family, as her paternal grandmother was the head librarian of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
And despite his daughter’s claims, her father David was quoted once saying he doesn’t have ‘an iota of Latin blood in my veins.’
Hilaria finally admitted in a rambling video over the weekend that her real name is Hillary, she was born in Boston, she only spent ‘some of’ her childhood in Spain and clarified she is ‘a white girl.’
But it wasn’t before the 36-year-old came under fire for giving countless interviews where she boasts of her childhood and family living in Majorca, claiming she moved to the US when she was 19 to attend New York University.
She went as far as speaking with a Spanish accent and once forgot the English word for ‘cucumber’ on live TV for a cooking segment.
‘So cringe’: Hilaria later shared on Instagram never-before-seen snaps of herself in Spain
DailyMail.com can reveal that she grew up in this 100-year-old $4million house in the heart of the most desirable district in Boston called Beacon Hill
DailyMail.com revealed that Hilaria grew up in a 100-year-old $4million house in the heart of the most desirable district in Boston, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
‘It is troubling to watch people lie about what you have said and not said. You are the most principled and decent woman I have ever known,’ Alec said on Instagram in support of his wife
Records show her parents bought the five-bed, five-bath house on Pinckney Street in June 1987 when their daughter was just three years old. They didn’t move out till she had turned 28
And while Dr. Adina admits that genealogy is always changing, she says it’s highly unlikely that a Spanish connection was overlooked in Hilaria’s family tree, ‘unless there was an adoption.’
On an old MySpace page unearthed by DailyMail.com, Hilaria used her given name Hillary, which she attempted to explain by saying she used Hillary in the US and Hilaria in Spain.
‘My whole family call me Hilaria. It always kind of bothered me that neither name sounds good in the other language. So I would use one or the other one,’ she said.
‘A handful of years before I met Alec, I decided to consolidate the two…It means happy in both languages. I think we can all be really like clear that it’s the same name just a few letters difference, so I don’t think we should be upset about it.’
She indicated that in her youth she tried to be her ‘coolest self,’ but ‘as you get older you kind of just embrace who you are and you just kind of want to be open about it and that’s what I’m trying to do here.’
Hilaria attempted to explain the confusion on Instagram, saying: ‘Let’s be very clear that Europe has a lot of white people in there and my family is white. Ethnically, I am a mix of many, many, many things. Culturally, I grew up with two cultures so it’s really as simple as that.’
Hilaria incorporated several elements of the country’s culture in her 175-guest wedding in June of 2012, recently noting in her explanation about her background that 44 people flew in from Spain for the event
The Mom Brain podcaster explained: ‘And I’m really lucky that I grew up speaking two different languages and I’m trying to raise my kids, so they speak two languages too. And that’s something very important to me especially having my family abroad’
Hilaria also incorporated several elements of Spanish culture in her 175-guest wedding in June of 2012, recently noting in her explanation about her background that 44 people flew in from Spain for the event.
As for husband Alec, he is publicly backing his wife’s claims. ‘You are my life. And hard as it is now, the dog barks, but the parade goes on. I love you,’ he posted in a message to Hilaria on Instagram.
‘You never claimed you were from Spain. You always maintained you were born here,’ he wrote.
‘It is troubling to watch people lie about what you have said and not said. You are the most principled and decent woman I have ever known.
‘You are a woman born in America, raised for many years in another land and proud of your dual upbringing. You haven’t faked anything. Ever,’ he added.
He’d earlier tweeted: ‘Fake? Exaggerated? Appropriated an accent as an adult? She lived in Spain for many years as a child. She lived both places.’