Obama’s ancestors were slave owners, research shows
NEW YORK -- Barack Obama has been criticized for not being “black enough” because he isn’t descended from slaves.
Now it turns out the Illinois senator is actually decended from slave owners. In the campaign trail’s latest side trip into ancestry, genealogist William Reitwiesner compiled a family tree and found a great-great-grand father of Obama’s white mother owned slaves.
Kentuckey records from 1850 show that George Washington Overall -- Obama’s great-great-great-grandfather -- owned two slaves. So did one of his great-great-great-great-great grandmothers, according to The Baltimore Sun, which confirmed Reitwiesner’s work.
Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, married a Kenyan exchange student also, named Barack Obama.
Obama wrote in his autobiography that one of his great-great-grandfathers was a decorated Union soldier but, family rumors said he was also distantly related to Jefferson Davis, head of the Confederacy. Another genealogist, Bruce Harrison, traced Obama’s roots and concluded that he is related to George Washington, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, General George Patton and, Quincy Jones.
NEW YORK -- Barack Obama has been criticized for not being “black enough” because he isn’t descended from slaves.
Now it turns out the Illinois senator is actually decended from slave owners. In the campaign trail’s latest side trip into ancestry, genealogist William Reitwiesner compiled a family tree and found a great-great-grand father of Obama’s white mother owned slaves.
Kentuckey records from 1850 show that George Washington Overall -- Obama’s great-great-great-grandfather -- owned two slaves. So did one of his great-great-great-great-great grandmothers, according to The Baltimore Sun, which confirmed Reitwiesner’s work.
Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, married a Kenyan exchange student also, named Barack Obama.
Obama wrote in his autobiography that one of his great-great-grandfathers was a decorated Union soldier but, family rumors said he was also distantly related to Jefferson Davis, head of the Confederacy. Another genealogist, Bruce Harrison, traced Obama’s roots and concluded that he is related to George Washington, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, General George Patton and, Quincy Jones.