Meryl Streep on screen and stage Deer Hunter" (1978) proved to be a breakthrough for Streep and she received her first Academy Award nomination for it. She won the award the following year for playing a troubled wife in the top-grossing drama "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979). Also in 1978, Streep played a German married to a Jew in Nazi Germany in the television miniseries "Holocaust", which earned her the Emmy Award for Best Actress. Streep established herself as a leading Hollywood actress in the 1980s. She played dual roles in the period drama "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1981), and starred as a Polish Holocaust survivor in
Meryl Streep to "Streep"). Another line of her father's family was from Giswil, Switzerland. Her mother had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Some of Streep's maternal ancestors lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and were descended from 17th-century immigrants from England. Her eighth great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilkinson, was one of the first Europeans to settle in Rhode Island. Streep is also the second cousin 7 times removed of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania; records show that her family is among the first purchasers of land in the state. Streep's maternal great-great-grandparents, Manus McFadden and Grace Strain, the latter the namesake of Streep's