Presidential Ancestry

With Presidents' Day in the U.S. this week, this is a good time to look at the ancestry of the U.S. presidents. After all, if your ancestors have been in the U.S. for 100 years or more, there is a strong possibility that your ancestry intersects with at least one of the U.S. presidents. The same can be said for many others of Canadian, British, Scottish, or Irish ancestry, as well as a few from the European continent.

You can find many sources of information about U.S. presidential genealogy. Probably the most scholarly resource is Gary Boyd Roberts' book, Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States. I wrote a review of this new book in a past newsletter. You can read that at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/04/the_royal_desce.html.

The Web is full of information about U.S. presidential ancestry, but with varying degrees of accuracy. Here is a list of some of those pages:

Presidential Ancestral Charts at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~lthurman/prsdnt/prsdnt.html

Genealogy of the U.S. presidents: http://www3.dcs.hull.ac.uk/public/genealogy/presidents/

Ancestry of George W. Bush: http://www.wargs.com/political/bush.html

Presidential Genealogy and Family History: http://www.presidentsusa.net/genealogy.html

Ancestry of George Washington: http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/georgew

Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln: http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/abrahaml/

Ancestry of John F. Kennedy: http://www.genealogy.com/famousfolks/kennedy/

Ancestry of Rutherford B. Hayes: http://www.rbhayes.org/rbhtree.htm

Comments

[Nate]

If you or a close relative appear in Ancestral File, the Relationship Finder v2 project at BYU will tell you instantly if you are related to US Presidents and a number of other famous people: http://roots.cs.byu.edu/digroots2/.

Here's an article explaining how to use the site: http://www.pricegen.com/resources/famousrelatives.htm.

[Carmen Johnson]

Presidential ancestry can be very difficult to trace on some presidents. For years we were told that we were related to Pres. Andrew Johnson. However, much of my research into the area showed me that many of the Johnsons from TN said they were related to Andrew Johnson and most of them were wrong. For one thing, Andrew Johnson was born in North Carolina not Tennessee and he only had one brother. Most of the brother's descendants live in TX and most of Andrew Johnson's descendants were along the female lines. Now, if you were descended from one of the brothers of Jacob Johnson (Andrew's father) you would have a better chance of making the conection. The only point that I believed in the relationship was when a letter was found in Andrew Johnson's papers and published in an article by Hugh B. Johnston that made the connection. I still think that most connections are somewhat suspect. I think it takes a great deal of reseach to make a credible connection.

Carmen Johnson

[Jeanne Ringland]

Carmen, are you the same Carmen Johnson who is the contact for the Gary Johnson Rootsweb ancestry? The one with the email addy of garyhopejohn@ruralnet?

I am trying to reach you but your email address does not work for me. Please contact me at

opie_jeanne@yahoo.com

My husband is part of the family line you have posted and we have some info to share as well as questions.

Thanks,

Jeanne Ringland