Son of presidents and tribal chiefs
In a special report, Sun-Times Political Editor Scott Fornek reveals Barack Obama's remarkably far-flung family tree
One of his ancestors accused a fellow New England colonist of witchcraft and later stole from the governor's house.
Another had two brothers killed by American Indians, who scalped one brother and kidnapped the other's daughter.
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Obama Family Tree
Still another ancestor was said to have been slain by pirates. Yet another lost a son in the Civil War to pro-slavery bushwackers who torched the man's home and threw burning coals on his infant daughter.
And, four centuries ago, his great- great-great-great-great-great- great-great-grandfather was a respected warrior and leader in eastern Africa.
It would take an orchard to contain all of Sen. Barack Obama's diverse ancestral branches.
Obama -- who has seven half-brothers and half-sisters spread across more than 10,000 miles -- has ancestors who were born in Kenya, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany and the Netherlands, the Sun-Times found in an exhaustive look at the South Side Democratic presidential hopeful's family history.
Obama's heritage is a key part of his public persona. He explored his ancestry in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, asking: "What is a family? Is it just a genetic chain, parents and offspring, people like me?"
And when he introduced himself to the nation in his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote speech, Obama said he was "grateful for the diversity of my heritage."
"I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth is my story even possible," he told a packed convention hall in Boston.
Our research began with Obama's own writings and genealogical work already done by William Addams Reitwiesner and other researchers. Then, we pored over documents on Ancestry.com and from other sources and interviewed descendants, historians and genealogists.
Like many Americans with deep roots in this country, Obama has ancestors who were slave owners. But unlike many African Americans, he is not known to have any who were slaves.
Obama definitely has presidential timber in his family tree: He's distantly related to three U.S. presidents -- Harry S Truman, George W. Bush and George Herbert Walker Bush -- as well as to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Which, genealogists say, isn't all that unusual, particulary for people with ancestors from New England.
"I found I'm related to 18 presidents," said Christopher Challender Child, a genealogist with the New England Historic Genealogical Society who has researched Obama's ancestry. "With presidents with New England ancestry, you will find a lot of them are related to one another."
Bush and his father, for instance, are distantly related to 16 other presidents. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt shared ancestors with 17 others.
And, as dramatic as some of the leaves on Obama's family tree might seem, Child said most people who trace their lineage back several generations would find comparable intrigue.
"They're interesting," the genealogist said of Obama's ancestors. "But a lot of people will find they have similar interesting stories."
Even a distant Obama relative downplayed the family's past.
"I didn't find too many unusual things," said Rae Janette McCurry Marshall, 77, who is a first cousin, twice removed, of Obama. "The most unusual was that Sen. Obama is in our family. We never had anyone that famous."
Not that that guarantees Obama her vote.
"I've always been a staunch Republican," said Marshall, a retired schoolteacher and bowling alley operator from El Reno, Okla. "I'd like to know where he stands on a lot of things."
There's no telling what you might find once you start rooting around in your family's past.
Genealogy has always been a popular hobby. And now, thanks to the Internet, census records, birth and death information, oral histories and the like are more accessible than ever, experts say.
Researching your genealogy can be consuming, though. Some amateurs spend decades tracing the roots and branches of their family trees. And professionals caution that establishing connections between ancestors through the clouds of history requires diligence, persistence and lots of patience.
There are plenty of Web sites that can help you get started. Here are some of the more popular ones:
• http://www.ancestry.com/ requires a subscription, but it's a treasure trove of documents.
• http://www.rootsweb.com/ is owned by the company that owns ancestry.com, but it's a free site that offers plenty of instructions, information and links.
• http://www.usgenweb.org/ is free and run by volunteers. The USGenWeb Project site provides links to documents, databases and sites all over the country.
• genealogy.about.com has lots of information about how to get started, plus links to sources for documents, tools and other help.
• http://www.heritagequestonline.com/ has census records, Revolutionary War documents, information on freed slaves and more. It can be accessed free at many major public libraries or from a home computer with a valid Chicago Public Library card.
• http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/archives.html, an Illinois State Archives site, includes databases on emancipated slaves, veterans of the Civil War and other conflicts, marriages and deaths and more. The site also has instructions on how to get started tracing your family tree.
• http://www.chipublib.org/cplbooksmovies/poptopics/genealogy.php, a Chicago Public Library site, has a list of resources. Also, many libraries have their own collections of old books, land records and wills.