First photos of Britney Spears' newly-discovered British family

Britney Spears is the all-American pop princess with a millionaire lifestyle
and a global property portfolio.
But Britney's talent has its roots in wartime Britain, when her English grandmother
danced the jitterbug at the Royal Opera House before falling in love with an American GI.

And as these exclusive photos show Britney bears more
than a passing resemblance to her great-grandmother, Lilian.

Family album: Britney Spears at the MTV awards last week,
and her British great-grandmother, Lilian, who came from Tottenham

The troubled singer’s great grandfather George Anthony Portell was the son
of a Portsmouth newsagent, who joined the Royal Navy in his teens.
Her great grandmother Lilian was born in the East End before moving to Tottenham,
north London, where the couple met at a local dance.
They married a year later in St John’s Parish Church in a joint ceremony
with her sister Ruth and her beau Richard Harvey.
They had two daughters - Miss Spears’s grandmother also called Lilian in 1924,
and then Joan in 1927.

Britney Spear's grandmother Lillian with her American husband Barnet
on their wedding day in 1945

Now aged 80 and called Joan Woolmore, Britney's great-aunt lives in a small terraced house
in Northolt, north-west London.
She told the Daily Mail:
 'We came from very humble beginnings but we were very happy.
We didn’t have a great deal and we moved around a lot around London –
but what both Lilian and I loved to do was dance and play music.
'My father saved up to send us both for dance classes and piano lessons.
He really was a wonderful man. He was kind, gentle and worked very hard.
My mother was much stricter but she suffered badly from asthma
so spent a lot of time in hospital when we were growing up.'

Britney's ancestors: The star's great-grandmother Lillian
and great-grandfather George Portell on their wedding day

The girls’ passion for music was also encouraged by their aunt and uncle Mary
and Desmond Worthy, who played piano and drums for bands in the 1930s.

Miss Woolmore said:
'Lilian and I liked dancing. During the war we used to go dancing in Covent Garden
where they had turned the Royal Opera House into a dance hall.
We could jitterbug with the best of them.'

She dismissed reports that her parents had been ‘living in sin’ before they were married,
insisting that they had put the same residence of Tewkesbury Road in Tottenham
on the marriage licence because Mr Portell was in the Navy and had no fixed address.

Joan became a cook working for the Royal Navy at HMS Ganges during the Second World War,
while Lilian became a typist with the Law Stationary Office.
Lilian went on to marry US soldier Barnett O'Field Bridges in London during March 1945.

Happy family: Britney Spears' great-grandfather George Portell
with his wife Lillian and daughter Joan

The couple moved to America and settled Louisiana, where they had three children,
including Britney’s mother Lynne. Lynne came to England to study teaching
at Reading University in the early seventies
and stayed with Miss Woolmore and her husband Archie.

Britney Spears' great aunt Joan Woolmore at her home in West London

She returned to America and married construction business boss Jamie Spears in 1975,
and also had three children, Britney, Bryan and Jamie-Lynn.

Miss Woolmore, who visited the Spears family in 1991, explained that she had no recent contact
with the pop star but admitted she was sad to hear about her recent problems.
She said:
'She had a lot of talent you could see that even when she was little.
She always wanted to be the centre of attention, always dancing or singing.
She did remind me of my sister Lilian – she was a real beauty as well.'

'I was surprised when she became a huge star all over the world but she was pushed into it.
Lynne was very ambitious for her.
These latest problems – it is very sad. I really hope that is all behind her now.'

Miss Spears made a triumphant return at the MTV Video Music Awards last week,
but for the past three years her life has spiralled out of control.

The 26-year-old has had two failed marriages and lost custody of her children,
and battled drug addictions that led to her being taken in to psychiatric care.
Miss Woolmore said that Miss Spears had never visited her family in England.

The Spears family: (L-R)
Jamie Lynn Spears and her newborn daughter, Maddie Briann, Lynne and Britney this week

Details of the controversial artist's ancestry will be available to the public by 2009,
as part of a groundbreaking project to place the records of more than 77million people online.

A spokesman for the venture, which is run by the London Metropolitan Archives
and Ancestry.co.uk, said:
'The records of millions upon millions of people from all walks of life dating back
more than 500 years will be accessible at the click of a mouse by early next year.'

The online archive will include registers detailing baptisms, marriages and burials
from more than 10,000 churches.
Poor law documents, listing the inhabitants of workhouses, will also be included
along with London school admissions and lists of convicts imported to the colonies.
It is hoped that the database will further help those trying to trace their heritage.

Genealogy has become increasingly popular in recent years
as more and more information is placed online.
(DailyMail)