"Beyonce's family tree reveals her great-great-great grandfather was a wealthy white merchant who married a slave in a 'love match'"

It doesn't take much imagination to re-write the Daily Mail's rehashed spin.

The whole thing is about how her black female ancestors were slaves bought and exploited by wicked white men.

For sure they were, but you might as well say that she is descended from wicked white men who forced themselves on female slaves.

Or, she might accept that whatever happened two centuries ago is pretty irrelevant to her.

For example, one of my grand-dads was a quartermaster in the British Army in India 'handing out underpants' as he liked to say; the other developed photographs for Luftwaffe reconnaissance on the Eastern Front. The bit I'm proud of is that neither fired a shot in anger, and my German grand-dad actually deserted a few days before the Russians overran them (a superbly brave thing to do in the circumstances, as the SS were routinely murdering deserters on the spot). But nobody should take the credit or the blame for what their ancestors did.