From Wikipedia:
"With the help of the author Alex Haley in 1972 and Mormon researchers in Salt Lake City, Jones discovered that his mother's ancestors included James Lanier, a relative of Sidney Lanier, the poet. Jones said in an interview, "He had a baby with my great-grandmother [a slave], and my grandmother was born there [on a plantation in Kentucky]. We traced this all the way back to the Laniers, the same family as Tennessee Williams." Learning that the Lanier immigrant ancestors were French Huguenot refugees, who had court musicians among their ancestors, Jones attributed some of his musicianship to them. In a 2009 BBC interview, Jones said Haley also helped him learn that his father was of part Welsh ancestry.
For the 2006 PBS television program ''African American Lives'', Jones had his DNA tested, and genealogists researched his family history again. His DNA revealed he is mostly African but is also 34% European in ancestry, on both sides of his family. Research showed that he has Welsh, English, French, and Italian ancestry, with European ancestry in his direct patrilineal line (Y DNA). Through his direct matrilineal line (mt DNA), he is of West African/Central African ancestry of Tikar descent, a people centered in present-day Cameroon. He also has European matrilinear ancestry, such as Lanier male ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, making him eligible for Sons of Confederate Veterans. Among his ancestors is Betty Washington Lewis, a sister of president George Washington. Jones is also a direct descendant of Edward I of England; Edward's ancestors included Rurik, Polish, Swiss, and French nobility."