Paterson was born in Brooklyn to Portia Hairston Paterson, a homemaker, and Basil Paterson, a labor law attorney. Basil Paterson was later a New York state senator for Harlem, Secretary of State under Hugh Carey, and served as deputy mayor of New York City for Ed Koch. According to a "New York Now" interview, Paterson traces his roots on his mother's side of the family to pre-Civil War African American slaves in the states of North Carolina and South Carolina. His father is half Afro-Jamaican. His paternal grandmother, a Jamaican, Evangeline Rondon Paterson was secretary to Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. His paternal grandfather was Leonard James Paterson, a native of Carriacou who arrived in the United States aboard the S.S. "Vestris" on May 16, 1917. It was reported by The Genetic Genealogist in March 2008 that Paterson had recently undergone genetic genealogy testing. Part of his father's ancestry consists of immigrants from England, Ireland, and Scotland, while his mother's side includes Eastern European Jewish ancestry, as well as ancestors from the Guinea-Bissau region of West Africa.