Baftas: Meryl Streep's British ancestor 'helped start war with Native Americans' Investigations by The Daily Telegraph have uncovered that Streep's English heritage can be traced back to as far as the 17th Century, and came from the side of her mother, who was born Mary Wilkinson. Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, born around 1615 in County Durham to a house with close connections to the Royal Family. It is believed that he or his relatives had tied to the Lincolnshire area. He became a Lieutenant in King Charles" army, but was captured by Parliamentarians during the English Civil War and allowed, with his wife, Susannah, and their son Samuel, to leave the country. He was the first of the family, and amongst the first Englishmen, to settle in America, and was one of the early Rhode Island settlers, his name appearing on the civil constitution of the first settlers there, in 1645. Once there, along with other colonists on the back of a wave of immigration from England, he began buying up huge swathes of land, a policy which eventually led to one of the bloodiest conflicts in early American history, known as King Philip's War, or Metacom's War, as the native Americans "fought to protect their way of life... against the English." Last year, the American genealogy series Faces Of America, which featured Streep's early ancestors, revealed how in March 1676 Lawrence Wilkinson defended his town in the face of fierce violence from the Native Americans. Whilst many of the townsfolk fled and say their houses destroyed, he stood firm and his property was one of the few left standing. When told that the English settlers later killed Metacom, the leader of the native Americans, and wiped out his warriors, Miss Streep said: "I'm so sorry to hear this, but this is what it is. It makes it feels like it's sort of my fault on some level, but it also connect be to those events, those first encounters between the two cultures must have been raw, terrifying, brutal and final. Another of Miss Streep's Wilkinson relatives, John, her fifth great-grandfather, a Quaker and a Justice of the Peace, also has links with England, in that in 1776 he became a delegate for the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, which drew up a signed document ending Pennsylvania's status as a colony of England and declaring its independence. It also emerged that Miss Streep is also long descendant of William Penn, the founder of the province of Pennsylvania. Her paternal side hails originally from small town of Loffenau in Wurttemberg, Germany. Miss Streep said of her ancestors: "I am nothing but these people, and as an actor I'm always trying to call up lives and the reason I know these things as an actor is because I have the DNA of all these crazy people." Family tree - from Lawrence Wilkinson to Meryl Streep Lawrence Wilkinson (1620- 1692) married Susannah Smith, had a son, Samuel Samuel Wilkinson (1650 - 1727), married Plain Wickendon (b1650), had a son John, b1678. John Wilkinson (1678 - 1751) married Mary (surname not known). They had a son John, b1711 John Wilkinson (1711 - 1782) married Mary Lacey (b 1720). They had a son John b1743 John Wilkinson (1743 - 1778) married Jane Chapman. They had a son, Abraham b1772 Abraham Wilkinson (1772 - 1816) married Mary Twining (b1774). They had a son Samuel b1810 Samuel Wilkinson (1810 - 1867) married Julianna Simpson (1821-1948). They had a son Eleazor Eleazer Twining Wilkinson (1857 - 1915) married Margaretta Betts (1860-1921) They had a son Harry (b1882) Harry Wilkinson (1882 - ?) married Mary Agnes Wolf (1884 - 1978) They had a daughter Mary Wolf Wilkinson b1915 Mary Wolf Wilkinson (1915 - 2001) married Harry Streep (1910-2003). They had a daughter Mary (Meryl) b1949