| When first compiling this lineage comparison it struck
me that I should be in the same generation as Barack OBAMA's mother, Ann
DUNHAM, because both of us were born in 1942 (and both of our fathers in
1918), yet at the bottom of the first version of this table, Ann and I
were two generaions "out of synch." I wondered if there was a mistake
in his lineage or mine, so I looked at each generation. It turns
out it's simply a matter of chance, with his ancestors often being the
early child of a young marriage and my ancestors often being the late child
of a late or second marriage. The limitations of HTML won't allow
me to space out the generation to scale through time. |
| I first became interested in Barack OBAMA's ancestry when I accidentally
stumbled on the genealogy of him compiled
by William Addams REITWIESNER as I was Googling on "stroup."
I made this discovery back when he was still a Senator, around the time
he gave his stirring speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
If I was pleased, then, to be his cousin, well... When he became
the 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate, hobby genealogists, in general,
became interested in his ancestry, and once he was elected President, interest
skyrocketed. It especially skyrocketed among that special breed,
the medieval genealogist, because…
As it turns out, OBAMA has fabulous European ancestry through his mother
(though not, as it happens, through her STRAUB line), as a perusal of REITWIESNER's
web page (linked above) will attest. OBAMA has "hooked into" the
European nobility; and, as the usual result of which, he has many royals
in his pedigree: Henry II, Edward I, William I (the Conqueror), etc.,
up to and including Charlemagne, to name just a few. I share much
of this ancestry with him, but on different lines, just as do tens of
millions of Europeans and European-Americans, including many notables.
For example, Barack is cousin to Pres. James MADISON, Pres. Jimmy CARTER,
Pres. Harry TRUMAN, Winston CHURCHILL, Col. Robert E. LEE, Ernest HEMMINGWAY,
et
al.
How appropriate that an African-American with noble European ancestry
would become the leader of the free world in the 21st-Century, a time when
the need to bridge the gap between the races and the nations has never
been greater. And how apt that he was a teacher of Constitutional
law (ten years at the University of Chicago), at a time when we most need
to return our nation to the rule of that sacred document. And how
deliciously ironic that our nation will have been saved by a black man. |