Okay, we all need to run for political office.

[CBHagman]

That, they say, is the surest way to find out your family history. Remember how the links between John Kerry and That Thing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue turned up last election?

Well, "they" are at it again, this time with Mike Huckabee. Feast your eyes on this family tree:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/02/AR2008010203483.html

Yes, Mittens and Mike are cousins. Surely no one is surprised by that.

Has anyone here ever had their genealogical information thrust upon them in this fashion? Or found a politician on the family tree?

[Bitwit1234]

1. I thank the good lord that Bill Clinton is not related to Huckabee

aren't you all. And if your ancestors came from England there is probably a drop of one of the ROYAL ancestors blood in there somewhere. After all those old guys sure got around.

[CBHagman]

2. When I was a university freshman...

...my professor of Western civilization looked out at the lecture hall and pronounced, "Many of you are descended from Charlemagne." Well! I guess that settles that...

[Cybergata]

5. Everyboy who has European ancestry . . .

is related to Charlemagne. It is a mathematically impossibility to not be related to him. He had numerous wives, lovers, and then there is the right of the first knight and all that conquering, pillaging and raping that all those European leaders did. The fun part is determine how many times you are your own cousin through Charlemagne! ;-)

http://cybergata.com/roots/988.htm

[kdmorris]

3. Yes

The fuckhead in the White House is my 6th cousin. When I found that out, I was even MORE disgusted than when I found out my ancestors in Louisiana owned slaves... and lots of them.

Me:

Direct Descendants of Jonathan Weir

1 Jonathan Weir b: Bet. 1750 - 1760 in , Rockbridge, VA, USA m Mary Polly Pettus m: ~1780
2 Hugh Weir b: 1789 in , Washington, TN, USA m Margaret Rankin b: May 12, 1798 m: 1810
3 John A. Wear b: Jan 06, 1820 in , Blount, TN, USA m Catherine Jones Smith b: Dec 03, 1826 in TN, USA m: Oct 15, 1845 in TN, USA
4 Mary Catherine Wear b: Mar 03, 1852 in MO, USA m William Martin Gatliff b: Dec 15, 1842 in KY, USA m: Dec 07, 1872 in TX, USA
5 Nora Jane Gatliff b: Mar 03, 1885 in Burnet, Burnet, TX, USA m Sumpter Stafford Huffman b. April 24, 1877 Liberty, TX, USA m: Sept. 24, 1900 in TX, USA.
6 My grandfather
7 My father
8 Me

Bush:

Direct Descendants of Jonathan Weir

1 Jonathan Weir b: Bet. 1750 - 1760 in , Rockbridge, VA, USA m Mary Polly Pettus m: 1780
2 James Hutchenson Weir b: Sep 30, 1789 in , Blount, TN, USA m Elizabeth Gault m: Oct 27, 1812 in Knoxville, , TN, USA
3 William Gault Weir b: Dec 11, 1817 in , Blount, TN, USA m Sarah Armanda Yancey
4 James Hutchenson Wear b: Sep 30, 1838 in Otterville, , MO, USA m Nannie E. Holliday m: Dec 04, 1866 in St. Louis, , MO, USA
5 Lucretia Wear b: Sep 17, 1874 in St. Louis, , MO, USA m George Herbert Walker b: Jun 11, 1875 in St. Louis, , MO, USA
6 Dorothy Walker b: Jul 01, 1901 in Walker's Point, York, ME, USA m Prescott Sheldon Bush b: May 15, 1895 in Columbus, , OH, USA m: Aug 06, 1921 in Kennebunkport, York, ME, USA
7 George Herbert Walker Bush b: Jun 12, 1924 in Rye, , NY, USA m Barbara Pierce
8 George Walker Bush b: Jul 06, 1946 in New Haven, , CT, USA

Just goes to show... you can't pick your parents... or your ancestors.

[NOLALady]

11. Who are your Louisiana ancestors?

[Cybergata]

4. Not that way, but . . .

I cringed when the name Cheney show up in my tree. The HORROR of the possiblity. I've only traced back, I don't even want to know anything beyond that.

[kestrel91316]

6. I am proud to count among my cousins none other than:

Senator Barack Obama (and I am white). Seems those slave-owning Allreds of North Carolina had a LOT of children, some of whom went west with the Mormons and spawned my dad's kin. Some wound up in TN and spawned ancestors of Obama's mom.

[iverglas]

7. I love mine!

I'll put it the way kdmorris did, since it gets complicated talking about my grx4 grmother's brother's grandson. ;)

me:

1. my grx5 grandparents c1740
2. Sarah c1770
3. Thomas
4. Thomas
5. Annie
6. my grandfather
7. my father
8. me

Viscount John Sankey -- Lord Chancellor of England 1929-1935:

1. my grx5 grandparents
2. Samuel
2. John
3. Viscount John Sankey 1866


I know I've boasted about this before, but nobody paid any attention!

Rumpole of the Bailey was fond of talking about The Golden Thread that Runs Through the English Law, i.e. the presumption of innocence. That line was penned by my cousin Viscount Sankey in his capacity as a Law Lord, on the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, in Woolmington v. Director of Public Prosecutions:

Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt subject to what I have already said as to the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception. If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner, as to whether the prisoner killed the deceased with a malicious intention, the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the prisoner is part of the common law of England and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained. When dealing with a murder case the Crown must prove (a) death as the result of a voluntary act of the accused and (b) malice of the accused.

Blue blood? Nay. Sankey was a Labour peer (a non-hereditary title), and Chancellor in a Labour government. (The mutual ancestors were prosperous tradespeople, he became a barrister.) A "class traitor", as he and his associates who left the Tories for Labour were termed in the day.

But there's better. As a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council some years earlier, he wrote the decision in the final appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada's decision that women were not "persons" under the Canadian constitution for the purpose of appointment to our Senate. It's known as the Persons Case here, and there are statues to the Famous Five women who fought the case all the way.

And in that decision, Edwards v. Canada, he said:

The British North America Act planted in Canada a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits. The object of the Act was to grant a Constitution to Canada. Like all written constitutions it has been subject to development through usage and convention.

And it is that doctrine -- the living tree of the constitution -- that culminated, most recently, in the recognition by the courts in Canada of the right of same-sex couples to marry.

And of course I knew none of this until a distant cousin I've met in England -- we share the grx4 grmother in question, via different husbands -- found out through her research and told me. She found the Rumpole part, but apparently failed to grasp the more momentous Canadian aspects.

My second cousin four times removed.
useful table: http://grand_uncle_mark.home.insightbb.com/cousin.html


I got an absolutely huge kick out of learning this, since human rights law and constitutional law are what interest me most in the world. I wouldn't say it's in the blood, but it was fun to tell my nephew's mother that her son's grx6 grandparents' gr-grandson was responsible for her being able to marry the woman of her dreams last year!

[CBHagman]

8. That is truly rare.

And it's truly something to admire on the family tree.

[iverglas]

9. well ...

*Somebody* has to be descended from (or related to) the good guys!

I'm just as fascinated by my grx3 grfather who died after two decades in the workhouse, of course. And his parents who were deported from one English county back to their own, under the Poor Law, as burdens on the public purse, in 1792. The grandson of the workhouse grx3 grfather (my gr-grfather) married the grx2 grdaughter (my gr-grmother) of the Viscount's gr-grparents, ha. I think that's the count ... I know my grfather was a bit of a snob about my grmother's family, shoemakers from Northamptonshire, and agricultural labourers pre-Industrial Revolution, with a few workhouse stays among them too, even though he probably didn't know any of this about his mother's line, let alone his father's impoverished origins.

And then their grandson (my father) married the grdaughter (my mother) of that weird gr-grfather of mine who just might someday turn out to be the grandson or some such thing of a whole different Viscount -- one who also had a very strong Canadian connection. Except that tale, I think, was made up out of whole cloth. But ya never know ... I have yet to figure out where he plucked his fake surname from, having figured out that it was fake (i.e. not what he was registered as at birth) but no reason for the fakery. There was a whole lotta messin' around without marriage back in those days!

Oh, that's right, speaking of which. My grx2 grparents in that Viscount Sankey's line had a grx4 grdaughter named Hilda. She married William Henry Fitz-Clarence. He was the grandson of George Augustus Frederick Fitz-Clarence, the First Earl of Munster and one of ten illegitimate children of William IV of Hanover and Dorothea Bland (a famous actress known as Mrs Jordan) when he was Duke of Clarence. William IV became King in 1830 -- he was Victoria's uncle.

Don't even try. I haven't. ;) It means that some remote cousins of mine were remote cousins of Queen Victoria, I think, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Here's Dorothea/Mrs Jordan, anyhow. I make her my grx6 grparents' grx4 grdaughter's husband's gr-grandmother.



http://www.thepeerage.com/p10508.htm


And then there's my weird gr-grfather's sister's husband's sister's husband's first cousin, who was the first white guy to cross Africa ...

[dragonlady]

14. You might enjoy this mystery novel featuring the Fitz-Clarences

Too Many Notes, Mr. Mozart, by Bernard Bastable, the pen name of Robert Barnard, one of my favorite authors. In this series Mozart reached a ripe old age and lived in England. This book has him giving music lessons to the young princess Victoria and getting involved in murder.

[iverglas]

15. I just might, ta!

Strikes me I might have read something by Robert Barnard at one time, too.

[NOLALady]

10. I share French-Canadian ancestry

with Hillary Rodham Clinton (and I'm Black) through her Mother's line, my Father's line.

[Drunken Irishman]

12. I've said it before, but I'm related to the Kennedy's.

Alexander Kennedy
|
Margery Sophia Kennedy (it's interesting to note she married a Kennedy, not sure it's a family member, though)
|
Gilbert Kennedy
|
Gilbert Kennedy
|
Gilbert Kennedy
|
Thomas Kennedy
|
John Kennedy
|
Patrick Kennedy
|
Patrick Kennedy
|
Patrick Kennedy
|
Patrick Joseph Kennedy
|
Joseph Patrick Kennedy
|
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

My line starts when Margery Sophia Kennedy (the 9th Great Grandmother of John Kennedy) married William Wallace. She had actually married him prior to marrying Gilbert Kennedy -- where that Kennedy line starts.

That's the only president I can find in my line.

[CBHagman]

13. Hey, we'll take it!

There's no "only" about it. You're in the club! Congratulations on having such an interesting set of relatives.

[TuxedoKat]

16. By accident...

during the previous election four years ago, I learned I had several common ancestors with both Bush (yuck) and John Kerry. I was trying to find out something about the surmane "Dwight" and on a Dwight Bulletin Board the participants were all talking about being related to Bush and Kerry. It was a pretty funny thing to find out. I haven't checked to see what other presidents I'm related to. I would love to find a connection to Obama.

[CBHagman]

17. Got relatives from County Offaly?

DUers of Irish descent, if you haven't seen this, feast your eyes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EADUQWKoVek