celebrities

Some names trend because of stardom. Others trend because people are trying to piece together a family story. Lois June Gouwens falls into that second category. She was not a public entertainer, recording artist, or social-media personality; the reliable public record that surfaces about her is almost entirely genealogical, and it points to one central fact: she was the mother of Marcheline Bertrand, the actress and humanitarian who later became widely known as Angelina Jolie’s mother. That alone explains why her name keeps appearing in searches. People want the human story behind the famous branch of the family tree. They find a birth date, a death date, a marriage record, and a daughter who entered Hollywood orbit later in life. The rest is a quieter American family history, which is ...