ELIZA JANE CLEMMONS
Did the Twain meet?
September 9, 2007
He can't prove it, but David Lee Dunham is certain that Eliza Jane Clemmons was a distant cousin of Samuel Clemens, the famed humorist known as Mark Twain.
An amateur genealogist and descendant of Eliza Jane Clemmons, Dunham hasn't been able to authenticate the connection between Twain and Barack Obama's great-great-great-great grandmother through any documents, but he said he was told of the relation by his grandfather and a number of his cousins.
Dunham said the different spellings for the same last name were more common in earlier eras.
It's possible that Barack Obama is distantly related to author Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain.
(AP file)
(AP file)