Thursday, March 17, 2011

Obama's Irish Kin Not Claiming Relation

I'm so glad I'm German.
A new study claims that President Obama has 28 living relatives who share his Irish ancestry, but some of the newly discovered kin aren't eager to share a pint with him.

In the study, released to The Associated Press by family history website Ancestry.com, genealogists traced the descendants of about two dozen passengers who came to America from Ireland on the ship Marmion in March 1850.


Obama found out years ago that an ancestor, Falmouth Kearney, fled the potato famine in Ireland and was brought to the United States on the Marmion when he was 19.


Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was a descendant of one of Kearney's daughters and a man named Jacob Dunham.  The study further filled out the branches on Obama's family tree and identified 28 living descendants of Kearney living in the U.S. and abroad.

But despite the prestigious connection, some of the newly discovered relatives aren't exactly dancing an Irish jig.  "I really don't like to claim a relationship to Obama," Roma Joy Palmer, 66, of Mulvane, Kan., told the AP. "He is not my favorite president."

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