Country singer Trisha Yearwood was left amused after learning her ancestors were thieves on U.S. genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are.

The How Do I Live hitmaker signed up for the family tree series and discovered a relative on her father's side, Samuel Winslut, had been convicted of breaking into the Shillinglee, England estate and killing deer - a crime punishable by death in the 1700s.

She said jokingly, "Awesome. Ok, so the three brothers are thieves ... I think we can pretty much rule out that I'm going to find out that I'm royalty. I think this is more interesting right? I never know what I'm going to find and this is really intriguing. So I'm interested in learning about these three brothers."

Yearwood's fun turned dark, however, when she then discovered Samuel had lost both his parents at a young age.

She said, "I was an adult when I lost both of my parents and it was really devastating and I'm a different person today because of losing them... I can only imagine, if you were seven or eight years old when your mother died and a few years later and your father dies and you're a 14-year-old boy, that you haven't really shaped who you are yet.

"So you have to grow up fast and do whatever you have to do to survive. So I can only imagine what it was like for him and his family."