Brendan Fraser Discovers His Great-Great Grandfather Almost Killed a Man on ‘Finding Your Roots’

Brendan Fraser was delivered quite a shocking piece of information during his recent appearance on PBS' Finding Your Roots. The 2023 Oscar winner went on the program to find out more about his family history and discovered that one of his ancestors almost killed a man.

Fraser's great-great-grandfather, Patrick F. Devine, was a Pennsylvania coal miner in the 1870s, during the infancy of the United States labor movement. That means there weren't strong unions to protect the workers from abuse and poor working conditions as they did extremely dangerous work. It was a very tumultuous trade, and it turns out that Patrick was caught in the thick of it.

Finding Your Roots host Harry Louis Gates Jr. revealed to Fraser during the special that Patrick F. Devine and a former coworker were fired for striking, and then teamed up to shoot at the man who replaced them on the job. The incident was written up in the local paper and uncovered by the Finding Your Roots research team.

"Wow, imagine thinking this through, 'This is what we’re going to do. We’re going to get a gun. We’re going to ambush him.' They had a plan. That’s criminal," Fraser reacted after he read the newspaper clipping. He tried to remove judgment from the situation when he thought about it more. "Look, it’s a different time. I don't believe you should fire guns at people to get what you need, but then again it’s not 1875 right now. It makes me think, did it really solve anything? Did it help? Did he feel like he succeeded? I don't know."

Things didn't end up too badly for Patrick F. Devine. There was no evidence that criminal charges were brought or that there was ever a trial for the crime. The Finding Your Roots team did find Patrick's registry with the 1900 census though, 25 years after the incident. The mining company rehired Patrick and he was still a miner two decades after shooting at the man who scabbed his job. Moreover, he was able to save up enough money to purchase his own home.

That wasn't the only interesting news that Fraser received during his time on the show. Finding Your Roots also revealed that the paternal side of Fraser's family included a long line of Austrian winemakers. His family made wine in the same region of Austria for over two hundred years.

"It makes me feel as if I am connected to a place," Fraser said after learning about this history for the first time. "It makes me feel like there’s a sense of tradition and pride in ownership, and how much care goes into putting grapes into a bottle so we can drink them."

The actor added later when reflecting on everything he had learned during the special that knowing about his family history gave him a fresh perspective on his life in the present. "It makes me feel that I think I need to have some gratitude for all of the good things I have going on in my life right now," he said.