FALMOUTH KEARNEY
For a simple Indiana farmer who's been dead nearly 130 years, Falmouth Kearney has received a lot of attention lately.
The discovery that Falmouth (or Fulmuth) Kearney was Barack Obama's great-great-great grandfather made headlines because it proved Obama was Irish -- or at least 1/32 Irish.
Some evidence suggests Obama has Irish roots even farther back (see great-great-great-great-great grandfather John Wilson). But Kearney is the guy who caught the public's eye.
"Today was the day for interviews, and I reckon I have done about 15 at this stage," Irish Anglican priest Stephen Neill wrote on his blog in May.
Using old parish records, Neill helped trace Obama's ancestry to Moneygall, County Offaly, for Ancestry.com, the genealogical Web site.
Falmouth and his parents, Joseph and Phoebe Kearney, lived in Moneygall, where Joseph was a shoemaker.
In 1850, Falmouth Kearney left Ireland to escape the potato famine, sailing from Liverpool, England, on the S.S. Marmion, according to Ancestry.com.
Falmouth was about 18 when he emigrated to the United States. He worked as a farmhand in Ohio in 1860 and as a farmer 10 years later in Tipton Co., Ind., according to Census records.
He and his wife, the former Charlotte (or Sharta) Hollowell, Obama's great-great-great grandmother, had five daughters and three sons. Three of their daughters -- Phoebe, Martha and Mary Ann -- married three brothers, all sons of Jacob Mackey Dunham and Louisa Stroup Dunham.
Mary Ann married Jacob W. Dunham, Obama's great-great grandfather.
"She cooked mostly traditional Irish stuff, like cabbage and potatoes and beef," said Virginia Goeldner, 72, who was a baby when her grandmother died. "But by the time she moved in with my folks, she had diabetes. They had to amputate her leg, and she really wasn't too active."