Jolie's aunt, Debbie Martin, died at a hospital in Escondido at the age of 61. She was the younger sister of Jolie's mother, Marcheline Bertrand, whose own death from ovarian cancer in 2007 inspired Jolie's surgery.
Martin's husband says she had the same defective BRCA1 gene that Jolie does, but didn't know it until after her cancer diagnosis.
Jolie, 37, said in a New York Times op-ed that her doctors estimated that she had a 50 percent risk of getting ovarian cancer and an 87 percent risk of breast cancer. She had her breasts removed, and sources say she plans to also have her ovaries removed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
