Family tree information of some familiar names

From the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/arts/14reun.html?pagewanted=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/S/Sharpton,%20Al

A recent genealogical study indicated that ancestors of the Rev. Al Sharpton, for instance, were once slaves owned by ancestors of Senator Strom Thurmond, who ran for president in 1948 as a segregationist. A genealogical researcher has said that the white mother of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, had ancestors who owned slaves

NYTimes Story in part “At a Harlem Reunion, a Rancher From Missouri Meets His ‘DNA Cousins’ “

Ms. Higginsen, who would not reveal her age, said she had been interested in her genealogical background ever since watching the television mini-series “Roots” in 1977. She assumed she was descended from slaves, and her maternal grandmother, Anna West, used to say the family had some American Indian blood. So in 2005 Ms. Higginsen took an ethno-ancestry test.

“I was stunned,” she said. “It said I had no Indian blood, but that I did have, in addition to my African ancestry, 28 percent European blood and 8 percent Asian.”

She persuaded her uncle, the Rev. James O. West Jr., a minister from Washington, to get a Y chromosome test.

Relatives always considered Mr. West black, but she said the results showed 52 percent European lineage and DNA that could link him to British royalty and the original settlers of colonial Jamestown, including Thomas West, an Englishman born in 1577 also known as the third Baron De La Warr, who became the first resident governor of the Virginia Colony.

“I was expecting Kunta Kinte,” Ms. Higginsen said, referring to the character in “Roots,” “but I got Lord De La Warr.”

From NewEnglandAncestors.org

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/publications/NEA/8-2_004_announce.asp

Barack Obama’s American Ancestry

In early 2005 I began researching the ancestry of recently-elected Illinois Senator Barack Obama. I was particularly interested since my own mother is from Kansas, as was his. Senator Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father, mentions an ancestor, decorated Union soldier Christopher Columbus Clark. Searching online databases, I quickly found Obama’s mother (Stanley Ann Dunham) and maternal grandfather (Stanley Armour Dunham) in the Social Security Death Index. The latter appears on the 1920 and 1930 censuses of Wichita and El Dorado, Kansas, respectively, living with his parents (in 1920 only), maternal grandparents, and matrilineal great-grandfather, the Christopher Columbus Clark above.

I found a useful Dunham website at www.journeyback.com. This site mentioned Obama’s maternal grandparents and claimed a patrilineal lineage for S.A. Dunham back to John1 Dunham of Plymouth. Recent generations of this lineage can be verified online back to the 1850 census. The above website gave the parents of Obama’s fifth great-grandfather, Samuel Dunham (d. 1824) as Samuel Dunham (great-great-grandson of John1 Dunham above) and Mary Lucas. However, family group sheets posted on July 29, 2004, by David Lee Dunham (on http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/ d/u/n/1930-L-Dunham/PDFFGS3. pdf) show Samuel Dunham (d. 1824) as a son of Jonathan Dunham (grandson of Jonathan2 Singletary alias Dunham) and Mary Smith. A Dunham DNA project (see http://pcdunham. net/DNA%20Project%0Review%20%20May%202005. pdf) found two separate Y-chromosome sequences for descendants of (1) John1 Dunham above and (2) Jonathan2 Singletary alias Dunham. Agnate descendants of Samuel Dunham (d. 1824) share the Y-chromosome sequence of the latter. This Jonathan2 Singletary alias Dunham is the subject of articles by Diane Rapaport (New England Ancestors 6 [2005], 5-6:50-51) and Noreen C. Pramberg (The Essex Genealogist 21 [2001]:144-47).

Thus, as David Lee Dunham argues, Samuel Dunham (d. 1824) is very likely a son of Jonathan Dunham and Mary Smith, daughter of Shubael Smith and Prudence FitzRandolph, this last a great-granddaughter of Edward FitzRandolph of Massachusetts and New Jersey. FitzRandolphs, one of a very few Norman families in England who likely date from the conquest of 1066, are treated briefly by Sir Anthony Richard Wagner in English Genealogy (3rd ed., 1984), pp. 44-45. The immigrant Edward FitzRandolph also shares, almost certainly, a descent from William I the Lion, King of Scotland (d. 1214) and Magna Carta surety Robert de Ros. Other FitzRandolph descendants include Elllen Louise Axson, first wife of President (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson (see Gary Boyd Roberts, The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants [2004, 2006], pp. 431-32).

Soon after starting this research, I learned that William Addams Reitwiesner of Washington, D.C., was also working on Obama’s ancestry. My research, and that of others, was added to Mr. Reitwiesner’s website at www.wargs.com/political/obama.html. Recent news articles have noted that this website includes 1850 census data of some interest – two of Obama’s ancestors, George Washington Overall and his mother-in-law, Mary (Grable) Duvall, then owned two slaves each (Duvall kinsmen of Mary’s husband were also ancestors of President Harry S Truman). Slave ownership by a few ancestors of Obama’s mother – a white Kansan with some Southern background – is certainly not unusual and almost to be expected. G.W. Overall and his mother-in-law lived in Nelson Co., Kentucky. A brother of one of my mother’s ancestors (Adam Shake) lived in Jefferson Co., Kentucky, and also owned a slave in 1850. Slave-owning ancestors have also been reported by Mr. Reitwiesner for Senator John McCain, former Senator John Edwards, and the two Presidents Bush.

Mr. Reitwiesner’s website (www.wargs.com) covers the known ancestry to date of a large variety of political figures (and other historical and contemporary notables) and is carefully labeled a “first draft,” neither “exhaustive nor authoritative.” Other topics in the ancestry of presidential candidates are under study as well. Those of particular interest to me include a likely link to French Canada for Hillary Clinton and close cousins of Bill Richardson in Nicaragua.

To view a chart of Senator Obama’s Dunham and FitzRandoph maternal ancestry, please visit www.notable kin.org/obama_lineage.pdf.

- Christopher Challender Child, Genealogist of the Newbury Street Press