Nancy Burdine And Elvis’ Jewish roots are from his great-great-grandmother on his mother’s side, Marchese explained. Nancy Burdine was born in 1826 in Mississippi, and she came from a Jewish family who immigrated from Lithuania at around the time of the American Revolution. According to the tradition of matrilineal descent, that meant Nancy’s daughter Martha Tackett Mansell, Martha’s daughter Octavia Mansell Smith, and finally Octavia’s daughter Gladys were all Jewish by heritage.