Family of Barack Obama

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The Obama family

U.S. First Family (2011): Barack Obama, Sasha Obama, Michelle Obama, and Malia Obama.
Ethnicity African American, English, Kenyan (Luo)
Current region Washington, D.C., U.S.
Information
Place of origin Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
Notable members Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Ann Dunham, Barack Obama, Sr..
Connected families Robinson, Dunham, Soetoro, Ng
This article is part of a series on
Barack Obama

The family of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America, is made up of people of African American, English, Kenyan (Luo), and Irish heritage,[1][2] who are known through Obama's writings and other reports.[3][4][5][6] His immediate family is the First Family of the United States. The Obamas are the first First Family of African descent.

Contents

Immediate family

Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama, née Robinson, the wife of Barack Obama, was born on January 17, 1964 in Chicago, Illinois. She is a lawyer and was a University of Chicago Hospital vice-president. She is the First Lady of the United States.

Malia Obama and Sasha Obama
Barack and Michelle Obama have two daughters: Malia Ann /məˈliːə/, born on July 4, 1998,[7] and Natasha (known as Sasha /ˈsɑːʃə/), born on June 10, 2001.[8] They were both delivered by their parents' friend Dr. Anita Blanchard at University of Chicago Medical Center.[9] Sasha is the youngest child to reside in the White House since John F. Kennedy, Jr. arrived as an infant in 1961.[10]
Before his inauguration, President Obama published an open letter to his daughters in Parade magazine, describing what he wants for them and every child in America: "to grow up in a world with no limits on your dreams and no achievements beyond your reach, and to grow into compassionate, committed women who will help build that world."[11]
While living in Chicago, the Obamas kept busy schedules, as the Associated Press reports: "soccer, dance and drama for Malia, gymnastics and tap for Sasha, piano and tennis for both."[12][13] In July 2008, the family gave an interview to the television series Access Hollywood. Obama later said they regretted allowing the children to be included.[14]
Malia and Sasha attend the private Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, the same school as attended by Chelsea Clinton, Tricia Nixon Cox, and Archibald Roosevelt, and currently the grandchildren of Vice President Joe Biden.[15] The Obama girls began classes there on January 5, 2009.[16] While in Chicago, both attended the private University of Chicago Laboratory School.
In his victory speech on the night of his election, President Obama repeated his promise to Sasha and Malia to get a puppy to take with them to the White House.[17] The selection was slow because Malia is allergic to animal dander;[18] the president subsequently said that the choice had been narrowed down to either a labradoodle or Portuguese Water Dog, and they hoped to find a shelter animal.[19] On April 12, 2009, it was reported that the Obamas had adopted a six-month-old Portuguese Water Dog given to them as a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy;[20] the dog was named Bo by Malia and Sasha.[20]
Marian Robinson
Barack Obama's mother-in-law who is currently residing in the White House. She is part of the Robinson family (see below).
Barack and Michelle Obama and family
Barack and Michelle dance at the "Obama Home States Inaugural Gala" at the Walter E. Washington Convention, celebrating his Inauguration.  
Left-to-right: Malia, Michelle and Sasha on stage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention  
The Obamas relax on a sofa in the Oval Office.  
The Obamas walking with their dog, Bo, on the South Lawn of the White House  
The Obamas on the campaign trail  

Maternal relations

Wikinews has related news:
  • [//en.wikinews.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_elected_44th_President_of_the_United_States Barack Obama elected 44th President of the United States]
  • [//en.wikinews.org/wiki/Grandmother_of_Barack_Obama_dies_at_86 Grandmother of Barack Obama dies at 86]

Barack Obama was raised by his mother Stanley Ann Dunham and grandparents Madelyn and Stanley Armour Dunham.[21][22] He has often referred to his family during his candidacy and term as President.[23][24][25]

Ann Dunham
Mother of Barack Obama born in 1942, died in 1995. Born Stanley Ann Dunham, she was an American anthropologist who specialized in economic anthropology and rural development. She earned her Ph.D from the University of Hawaii and worked with the United States Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation, and Women's World Banking, championing microcredit for the world’s poor.[21][26] Obama referred to his mother as the dominant figure in his formative years. "The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics." [27]
Stanley Armour Dunham
Stanley Dunham is the grandfather of Barack Obama. He was born in 1918 and served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II, enlisting just after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Stanley and his wife Madelyn raised Obama in Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Obama, Stanley is related to six US presidents: James Madison, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.[28][29] He died in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1992, and is buried at the Punchbowl National Cemetery.
Ralph Dunham
Great-uncle of Barack Obama, older brother of Stanley Dunham, born 1916. He served in the U.S. Army as an assignment and personnel officer during World War II, landing at Normandy's Omaha Easy Red Beach on D-Day plus four, working his way through France, Italy and Germany.[30][31]
Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham
Barack Obama's maternal grandmother was born in 1922 and died on November 2, 2008.[32] She was a bank vice president in Hawaii. Obama said that when he was a child, his grandmother "read me the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and told me about the men and women who marched for equality because they believed those words put to paper two centuries ago should mean something."[11] According to Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father,[33] his great-grandmother Leona McCurry was part Native American, which Obama believed Leona held as a "source of considerable shame" and "blanched whenever someone mentioned the subject and hoped to carry the secret to her grave"; whereas McCurry's daughter (Obama's maternal grandmother) "would turn her head in profile to show off her beaked nose, which along with a pair of jet-black eyes, was offered as proof of Cherokee blood."[34] To date, no concrete evidence has surfaced of Cherokee heritage. Obama's maternal heritage consists mostly of English ancestry, with much smaller amounts of German, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Swiss, and French ancestry.[3]
Jonathan Singletary Dunham
Born in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640, Barack Obama's 8-greats-grandfather was his earliest ancestor born in North America.
Charles Thomas Payne
Great-uncle of Barack Obama, younger brother of Madelyn Dunham, born 1925. Served during World War II in the U.S. Army 89th Infantry Division.[35] Obama has often described Payne's role in liberating Ohrdruf forced labor camp.[36] There was brief media attention when Obama mistakenly identified the camp as Auschwitz during the campaign.[37] In 2009, Payne spoke about this experiences:

Ohrdruf was in that string of towns going across, south of Gotha and Erfurt. Our division was the first one in there. When we arrived there were no German soldiers anywhere around that I knew about. There was no fighting against the Germans, no camp guards. The whole area was overrun by people from the camp dressed in the most pitiful rags, and most of them were in a bad state of starvation.[38]

Payne appeared in the visitor's gallery at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, when his great-nephew was nominated for President.[39] He was the assistant director of the University of Chicago's Library.[36]
Maya Soetoro-Ng
Half-sister of Barack Obama, born August 15, 1970, in Jakarta, Indonesia.[40] She has another half-brother, Yusuf, and a half-sister, Aya, from her father's second marriage. She is married to Konrad Ng, with whom she has two daughters, Suhaila and Savita. Maya Soetoro-Ng is a teacher in Hawaii.[41]
Konrad Ng
Brother-in-law of Barack Obama, born 1974. He is of Malaysian Chinese descent,[42] and his parents are from Kudat and Sandakan, two small towns in Sabah, Malaysia. Ng and his younger brother, Perry, were born and raised in Burlington, Ontario.[43] Perry Ng works for the University of Ottawa.[42] He married Maya Soetoro-Ng at the end of 2003 in Hawaii.[44] They have two daughters, Suhaila[45][46][47] and Savita.[41] Konrad Ng currently is a US citizen.[48] He is an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii's Academy of Creative Media.[49] He studied philosophy at McGill University and cultural studies at the University of Victoria before he got his PhD from University of Hawaii at Manoa.[50][51]
Lolo Soetoro
The second husband of Ann Dunham and stepfather to Barack Obama, born in Indonesia 1936, died 1987. He is the father of Maya Soetoro-Ng. After his divorce from Dunham, Soetoro married Erna Kustina. She bore him two children, Yusuf Aji Soetoro (b. 1981) and Rahayu Nurmaida Soetoro (b. 1984).[52]
Robert Wolfley
Barack Obama's great-great-great-grandfather. He served as a private in Company A, 145th Ohio Infantry during the American Civil War. He is buried in the Olathe Memorial Cemetery in Olathe, Kansas.[53]

Paternal relations

The Obamas are members of the Luo, Kenya's third-largest ethnic group, which is part of a larger family of ethnic groups, collectively also known as Luo. Linguistically, the Luo language belongs to the Eastern Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. The Obama family is largely concentrated in the western province of Nyanza.

Barack Obama, Sr.
Barack Obama's father (1936–1982). Government economist in Kenya. In addition to President Obama, Barack Obama Sr. fathered one daughter and at least four sons.[54]
Sarah Obama (aunt of Barack Obama)
Aunt of U.S. President Barack Obama and elder sister of his father, born 1933 to Hussein Onyango and Habiba Akumu Obama.[55] (She should not be confused with her stepmother Sarah Onyango Obama, also often called just Sarah Obama, the third wife of Onyango.)
Hawa Auma Hussein (aunt of Barack Obama)
Aunt of U.S. President Barack Obama and younger sister of his father, born to Hussein Onyango and Habiba Akumu Obama.[55] She is the sole surviving full sibling of Barack Obama, Sr.[56]
Hussein Onyango Obama
Barack Obama's paternal grandfather (c. 1895–1979).[57] (One source gives 1870–1975 as his dates of birth and death, possibly based on his tombstone in his home village.,[58] In 1988 Barack Obama found a British document based on a 1928 ordinance showing his grandfather as 35 years old. The date of the document must have been around 1930, which means that his grandfather had indeed been born around 1895.[59]) Onyango was the fifth son of his mother, Nyaoke, who was the first of the five wives of his father, Obama.[60] Barack Obama relates how his step-grandmother Granny Sarah (Sarah Onyango Obama) describes his grandfather: "Even from the time that he was a boy, your grandfather Onyango was strange. It is said of him that he had ants up his anus, because he could not sit still."[61] As a young man, he learned to speak, read and write in English.[62]
Onyango worked as a mission cook and as a local herbalist.[61] He joined the King's African Rifles[63] during World War I.
In 1949, Onyango spent at least 6 months in Kamiti Prison. He was probably tried in a magistrates’ court on charges of political sedition or membership of a banned organisation, but the records do not survive, because all such documentation was routinely destroyed in British colonies after six years. He was violently tortured to extract information about the growing insurgency.[64] In his memoir, President Obama described his grandfather's shocking physical state: "When he returned to Alego he was very thin and dirty. He had difficulty walking, and his head was full of lice." For some time, he was too traumatized to speak about his experiences. His wife told his grandson: "From that day on, I saw that he was now an old man."[62] Onyango was permanently scarred, remaining in pain and requiring assistance moving until his death. Although previously working very closely with British colonists, his torture left Onyango bitterly anti-British. During a Sky News interview in 2009, Barack Obama was asked if this negatively affected his view of the British personally and he replied that it did not. "I love the Brits and I think I have shown that affection every time I have visited there. The notion that I would somehow judge countries based on what happened 100 years ago would not make much sense."[65]
Onyango is sometimes referred to as Mzee Hussein Onyango Obama. The word mzee is a Kenyan honorific meaning "old man" or "elder."
According to his third wife, Sarah, he originally converted to Catholicism, but took the name Hussein when he later converted to Islam; she said he passed the name, not the religion, on to his children.[66] Luos are given names related to the circumstances of their birth, and Onyango means born in the early morning.[67]
Habiba Akumu Obama
Also known as Akumu Nyanjoga (c. 1918-2006).[68][69][70][71] Barack Obama's paternal grandmother, and the second wife of Hussein Onyango Obama. She gave Onyango three children: daughters Sarah and Auma, and son Barack (Barack Obama's father).[72] Her father was named Njango and she was born and raised in the Western Kenyan village of Karabondi.[71][73] In his memoir Dreams from My Father, her grandson wrote that she was miserable in her marriage and abandoned her husband and children and subsequently married again and moved to present-day Tanzania. Luos are given names related to the circumstances of their birth and Akumu means mysterious birth, a conception after a birth, but before resumption of menses.[67] She took the name Habiba upon her conversion to Islam. A photograph of her holding her son, Barack Sr, on her lap is on the cover of her grandson's memoir. (See image at right margin.)[74]
Sarah Onyango Obama
Third wife of Obama's paternal grandfather, born 1922.[58] She is known for short as Sarah Obama and is sometimes referred to as Sarah Ogwel, Sarah Hussein Obama or Sarah Anyango Obama.[75] She lives in Nyang’oma Kogelo village, 30 miles west of western Kenya's main town, Kisumu, on the edge of Lake Victoria.[76][77] (She should not be confused with her stepdaughter of the same name, Sarah Obama, a daughter of Onyango's second wife, Akumu.)[78]
Although she is not a blood relation, Barack Obama calls her "Granny Sarah".[75][79] Sarah, who speaks Luo and only a few words of English, communicates with President Obama through an interpreter.
On July 4, 2008, she attended the United States Independence Day celebrations in Nairobi, hosted by Michael Ranneberger, the US ambassador in Kenya.[80]
During the campaign she protested attempts to portray Obama as a foreigner to the United States or a Muslim, saying that while Obama's grandfather had been a Muslim, "In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents."[66] Sarah Obama herself is "a strong believer of the Islamic faith,” in her words.[81]
Kezia Obama
(Also known as Kezia Aoko[82] and as "Grace"[83][84]). Born c. 1940, she is Barack Obama Sr.'s first wife, whom he married in Kenya before studying abroad in the United States. She currently lives in Bracknell, Berkshire, England.[85][86] On March 22, 2009, Kezia made a guest appearance on the British television show Chris Moyles' Quiz Night.[87] Her sister, Jane, is the 'Auntie Jane' mentioned at the very start of Dreams from My Father when she telephoned Obama to inform him that his father had been killed in a car accident.[88]
Malik Obama
Barack Obama's half-brother, also known as Abongo or Roy, born c. March, 1958,[85] son of Barack Obama, Sr. with his first wife, Kezia.[89] Malik Obama was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya.[90] He earned a degree in accounting from the University of Nairobi.[91] He met his half-brother for the first time in 1985[90] when Barack flew from Chicago to Washington, D.C., to visit him.[92] Malik and his half-brother Barack were best men at each other's weddings.[90] Barack Obama brought his wife Michelle to Kenya three years later, and they met with Malik again while Barack was introducing Michelle to many other new relatives.[93]
Although much of the Obama family has dispersed throughout Kenya and overseas, most, including Malik Obama, still considered their rural village on the shores of Lake Victoria to be their true home, and feel that those who have left the village have become culturally "lost".[94] A frequent visitor to the United States,[93] and consultant in Washington, D.C. for several months per year,[90] he nevertheless settled in the Obamas' ancestral home, Nyang’oma Kogelo, a village of several hundred people that he prefers to the city for its slow pace.[90] He runs a small electronics shop a half hour drive outside of town.[90]
During his brother's presidential campaign, Malik Obama was a spokesman for the extended Obama family in Kenya, dealing with safety and privacy concerns arising from increased attention from the press.[95]
Auma Obama
Barack Obama's half-sister, born c. 1960.[96] As of July 2008, development worker in Kenya.[97] She studied German at the University of Heidelberg from 1981 to 1987. After her graduation in Heidelberg she went on for graduate studies at the University of Bayreuth, which awarded her a PhD in 1996. Her dissertation was about the conception of labor in Germany and its literary reflections.[97] Auma Obama has lived in London, and in 1996 married an Englishman, Ian Manners, although they have since divorced.[98] They have a daughter named Akinyi (b. 1997).[97][99] In 2011 Auma Obama was interviewed for Turk Pipkin's documentary Building Hope.
Abo Obama
Barack Obama's alleged half-brother also known as Samson Obama,[100] born 1968. In Dreams from My Father, it is stated that the Obama family doubt Abo and Bernard are the biological sons of Barack Obama, Sr. Abo is a mobile phone shop manager in Kenya.[101] He was barred from entering the United Kingdom after receiving a police caution for a public order offence; he was also accused of but not prosecuted for sexual assault. At the time he had been living illegally in the UK.[102][103]
Bernard Obama
Barack Obama's alleged half-brother, born 1970. Dreams from My Father states that the Obama family doubt Abo and Bernard are the biological sons of Barack Obama, Sr. He had been an auto parts supplier in Nairobi, Kenya, and has one child. Bernard converted to Islam as an adult and has said: "I’m a Muslim, I don’t deny it. My father was raised a Muslim. But it’s not an issue. I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is about."[104] He currently resides in Bracknell, England, with his mother Kezia.[104]
Ruth Ndesandjo
Born Ruth Beatrice Baker, in US c. 1937, to Maurice Joseph Baker and Ida Baker of Newton, Massachusetts.[105] Ruth was a 1954 graduate of Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachusetts, and a 1958 graduate of Simmons College in Boston with a degree in business.[105] Ruth was a suburban elementary school teacher when she met and began dating Barack Sr. in Cambridge in June 1964, a month before Barack Sr.'s return to Kenya in August 1964.[105] Ruth followed Obama Sr. back to Kenya five weeks later, and married him in Kenya in a civil ceremony on December 24, 1964.[105] She later became a private kindergarten director in Kenya.[106] Ruth's two sons with Barack Obama, Sr., are Mark and David Ndesandjo; her third son, Joseph Ndesandjo, was born c. 1980 from a subsequent marriage.
Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo
Barack Obama's half-brother, son of Ruth Nidesand and Barack Obama Sr.[107] He runs an Internet company called WorldNexus that advises Chinese corporations how best to reach international customers.[108] Mark graduated from Brown University, studied physics at Stanford University, received an MBA from Emory University, and has lived in Shenzhen, China, since 2002.[109] Through his mother, he is Jewish[110] and is married to Liu Xuehua (also spelled Liu Zue Hua in some reports), a Chinese woman from Henan Province.[111][112] He is also an accomplished pianist.[113] In November 2009, he held a press conference for the upcoming publication of his semi-autobiographical novel Nairobi to Shenzhen, and stated that he also planned to write a proper autobiography which would go into more detail about his relationship with Barack Obama.[114]
David Ndesandjo (c. 1967 – c. 1987)
Barack Obama's half-brother (also known as David Opiyo Obama), son of Ruth Nidesand and Barack Obama Sr. Killed in a motorcycle accident.[115][116]
George Hussein Onyango Obama
Youngest half-brother of Barack Obama, born c.1982, son of Barack Obama Sr.[117] and Jael Otieno (now a resident of Atlanta, Georgia).[118][119] George was six months old when his father died in an automobile accident, after which he was raised in Nairobi by his mother and a French step-father. He later lived in South Korea for two years while his mother resided there for business reasons.[118] Returning to Kenya, George Obama "slept rough for several years,"[120] until his aunt gave him a six-by-eight foot corrugated metal shack in the Nairobi, Kenya, slum of Huruma Flats.[118] As of August 2008, Obama was studying to become a mechanic.[118] George received little attention until being featured in an article in the Italian language edition of Vanity Fair in August 2008, which portrayed him as living in poverty, shame, and obscurity.[121] The article quoted George Obama as saying that he lived "on less than a dollar a month" and stated that he "does not mention his famous half-brother in conversation" out of shame at his poverty.[122] In later interviews George contradicted this picture. In an interview with The Times, he "said that he was furious at subsequent reports that he had been abandoned by the Obama family and that he was filled with shame about living in a slum."[119] He told The Times, "Life in Huruma is good." George Obama said that he expects no favors, that he was supported by relatives, and that reports he lived on a dollar a month were "all lies by people who don’t want my brother to win.”[119] He told The Telegraph that he was inspired by his half-brother.[118] According to Time, George "has repeatedly denied...that he feels abandoned by Obama."[123] CNN quoted him as saying, "I was brought up well. I live well even now. The magazines, they have exaggerated everything... I think I kind of like it here. There are some challenges, but maybe it is just like where you come from, there are the same challenges."[121]
Omar Okech Obama
He sometimes goes by a variation of the name of his father Onyango Obama.[124][125] Half-uncle of Barack Obama,[126] born on June 3, 1944 in Nyang’oma Kogelo. Oldest son of Onyango and Sarah Obama, he moved to the U.S. in 1963 as part of Tom Mboya's Airlift Africa project.[124] Once he arrived in the U.S., Barack Obama Sr. found him a place at a boys’ school then known as Browne & Nichols, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[124] He later dropped out of school and changed his name to O. Onyango Obama.[124] He operated a liquor store in Framingham, Massachusetts, where he resided as of March, 2011.[124][127] He was subject to a deportation order in 1989.[128] The Boston Herald reports that he may have illegally obtained a driver's license and Social Security Number.[129] After an unsuccessful appeal he was given a new deportation order in 1992.[130][128] He was arrested on August 24, 2011 for driving under the influence,[128] and subsequently held in jail until September 9, 2011, on a federal immigration warrant.[125] [131]
Zeituni Onyango
Half-aunt of Barack Obama,[132] born May 29, 1952, in Kenya,[133] Onyango is referred to as "Aunti Zeituni" in the memoir Dreams from My Father.[134] She lives in a South Boston public housing facility.
Yusuf Obama
Half-uncle of Barack Obama,[126] born c. 1950s in Nyang’oma Kogelo; son of Onyango and Sarah Obama.
Sayid Obama
Half-uncle of Barack Obama,[126][135] born c. 1950s in Nyang’oma Kogelo; son of Onyango and Sarah Obama.

Michelle Robinson Obama's extended family

Barack Obama has called his wife Michelle "the most quintessentially American woman I know."[4] Her family is of African-American heritage, descendents of Africans of the American Colonial Era.[4] Michelle Obama's family history traces back from slavery to Reconstruction to the Great Migration North. Some of Michelle's relatives still reside in South Carolina.

Jim Robinson

Michelle's earliest known relative on her father's side is her great-great grandfather Jim Robinson, born in the 1850s, who was an American slave on the Friendfield plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina. The family believes that after the Civil War he remained a Friendfield plantation sharecropper for the rest of his life and that he was buried there in an unmarked grave.[4]

Jim married twice, first to a woman named Louiser with whom had two sons, Gabriel and Fraser, Michelle Obama's great-grandfather. There was also a daughter born to the family, but there is no reference to a name and she is believed to have died as a child. His second marriage to Rose Ella Cohen bore 6 other children. Fraser had an arm amputated as a result of a boyhood injury. He worked as a shoemaker, newspaper salesman and in a lumber mill.[4] Carrie Nelson, Gabriel Robinson's daughter, now 80, is the oldest living Robinson and the keeper of family lore.[4]

At least three of Michelle Obama's great-uncles served in the military of the United States. One aunt moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where she worked as a maid, and cooked Southern-style meals for Michelle and her brother, Craig, when they were students at Princeton University.

Marian Lois Robinson
Michelle Obama's mother (birthname Marian Lois Shields, born July 30, 1937), now widowed, married Michelle's father, Fraser Robinson, on October 27, 1960.[136][137] Robinson was formerly a secretary at Spiegel catalog and a bank. While Michelle and Barack Obama were campaigning in 2008, Robinson tended the Obama's young children and does the same while currently living in the White House itself as part of the First Family;[138] she is the first live-in grandmother there since Elivera M. Doud during the Eisenhower administration.[139] Some media outlets have dubbed Robinson the "First Granny".[139][140] Marian takes Sasha and Malia to school daily and enjoys life in Washington.[141]
Fraser C. Robinson III
Michelle Obama's father, born August 1, 1935, died March 6, 1991, married Michelle's mother, Marian Shields, on October 27, 1960.[137][142] Robinson was a pump worker at the City of Chicago water plant.[4]
Craig Robinson
Michelle Obama's brother, born 1962. He is currently head coach of men's basketball at Oregon State University.[143]
Fraser Robinson, Jr.
Michelle Obama's grandfather was born on August 24, 1912, in Georgetown, South Carolina, and died on November 9, 1996, aged 84. He was a good student and orator, but moved from South Carolina to Chicago to find better work than he could find at home, eventually becoming a worker for the United States Postal Service. He was married to LaVaughn Johnson. When he retired, they moved back to South Carolina.[4]
LaVaughn Dolores Johnson
Michelle Obama's grandmother (February 6, 1915-September 17, 2002) and wife of Fraser Robinson Jr. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, to James Preston Johnson (1880-1920?) and Phoebe (1879-1920?) in Chicago.
Capers C. Funnye Jr.
Michelle Obama's first cousin once removed: Funnye’s mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye (born Verdelle Robinson; August 22, 1930 – April 16, 2000) and Michelle Obama’s paternal grandfather, Fraser Robinson Jr., were siblings. One of America's most prominent African American rabbis, known for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and African Americans.[144]

Genealogical charts

Ancestries

Obama

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 16. Opiyo
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8. Obama
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4. Hussein Onyango Obama
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9. Nyaoke
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10. Njango
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5. Akumu Nyanjoga
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 11. NN
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1. Barack Hussein Obama II
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 24. Jacob William Dunham
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12. Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham, Sr.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 25. Mary Ann Kearney
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6. Stanley Armour Dunham
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 26. Harry Ellington Armour
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 13. Ruth Lucille Armour
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 27. Gabriella Clark
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3. Stanley Ann Dunham
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28. Charles Thomas Payne
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 14. Rolla Charles Payne
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 29. Della L. Wolfley
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7. Madelyn Lee Payne
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 30. Thomas Creekmore McCurry
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 15. Leona Belle McCurry
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 31. Margaret Belle Wright
 
 
 
 
 
 

Robinson

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 16. Jim Robinson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8. Fraser Robinson, Sr.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 17. Louisa
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4. Fraser Robinson, Jr.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9. Rose Ella "Rosella" Cohen
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2. Fraser C. Robinson III
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 20. Ruben Johnson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10. James P. Johnson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 21. Carrie Don
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5. LaVaughn Dolores Johnson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 22. Nelson Moten
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 11. Phoebe Moten
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 23. Mary
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 24. Dolphus Theodore Shields
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12. Robert Lee Shields
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 25. Alice Easley
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6. Purnell Nathaniel Shields
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 26. Nathan Law
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 13. Anna Estelle Lawson
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 27. Fannie L. Humphrey
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3. Marian L. Shields
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28. Peter Jumper
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 14. James Jumper
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 29. Eliza Wade
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7. Rebecca Jumper (or Coleman)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 30. Nelson Tinsely
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 15. Eliza Tinsley
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 31. Nancy Morehead
 
 
 
 
 
 

Family trees

Barack Obama    
Stanley
Dunham
1918–1992
Madelyn
Payne
1922–2008
Akumu
Nyanjoga
Onyango
Obama
c. 1895–1979
Sarah
Ogwel
1922–
Lolo
Soetoro
1936–1987
Ann
Dunham
1942–1995
Barack
Obama, Sr.*
1936–1982
Kezia
Aoko
c. 1940–
Omar
Obama
1944–
Zeituni
Onyango
1952–
Yusuf
Obama
c. 1950s–
Said
Obama
c. 1950s–
Konrad
Ng
c. 1974–
Maya
Soetoro
1970–
Barack
Obama
1961–
Michelle
Robinson
1964–
M. Abongo
Obama
1958–
Auma
Obama
c. 1960–
Abo
Obama
1968–
Bernard
Obama
1970–
Suhaila
Ng
c. 2005–
Savita
Ng
c. 2008–
Malia Ann
Obama
1998–
Natasha
Obama
2001–
* Barack
Obama, Sr.'s
additional
Ruth
Baker
c. 1937–
Jael
Otieno
relationships:
Mark
Ndesandjo
David
Ndesandjo
c. 1967 – c. 1987
George
Obama
c. 1982–
Fraser
Robinson, Jr.
—
South Carolina
(1912–1996)
Sawmill worker
LaVaughn D.
Johnson
—
Illinois
(1915–2002)
Purnell
Shields
—
Alabama
Painter
in Chicago
(c.1910-c. 1983)
Rebecca
Jumper
—
Nurse
in Chicago
(1909-1988)
Capers C.
Funnye, Jr.
—
(born c. 1952;
nephew of
Fraser
Robinson, Jr.)
Lead rabbi,
Ethiopian
Hebrew
Congregation
in Chicago
Fraser
Robinson III
—
Illinois
(1935–1991)
Enjoyed boxing
in youth;
water plant
pump operator
in Chicago
Marian
Shields
—
Illinois
(born 1937)
Secretary at
Spiegel catalog
in Chicago;
First
Mother-in-Law
of the U.S.A.
Craig
Robinson
—
Illinois
(born 1962)
Head coach of
Oregon State
Beavers men's
basketball
Michelle
Robinson
—
Illinois
(born 1964)
First Lady
of the United States

Distant relations

See also: List of United States Presidents by genealogical relationship

According to genealogists, Barack Obama's distant cousins include the multitude of descendants of his maternal ancestors from all along the early-American Atlantic seaboard as well as paternal, Kenyan relations belonging to the Luo tribe, many descending from a 17th century ancestor named Owiny.[145][146] For example, George W. Bush, the 43rd U.S. president, is the eleventh cousin of Barack Obama.[147] The New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade argues that with eleven generations leading back to their common progenitor, Samuel Hinckley, the relationship between the 43rd President and the 44th President is "genetically meaningless".[148]

Selected genealogical relationships

John McCain
 According to William Reitwiesner he is 22nd cousin 2 times removed.[149] According to Ancestors of Barack Hussein Obama: 50 Generations by Lorina Boliq, Senator McCain is also Obama's 24th cousin 6 times removed.

Bill Hickok
 According to Barack Obama's family lore (and confirmed by the New England Historic Genealogical Society), the President and Hickok are sixth cousins, six-times removed.[150]

Robert Duvall
 Goodnight helped inspire Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry to create a protagonist for his novel series Lonesome Dove: Woodrow Call. In Dove's television novela, Woodrow Call's partner is Gus McCrae, portrayed by Obama's eighth cousin, twice removed, actor Robert Duvall.[151]

James Madison
 It is claimed that Obama may also be distantly related to U.S. Presidents James Madison, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, U.S. Civil War General Robert E. Lee, and actor Brad Pitt.[152][153][154]

Elvis Presley
 Boliq's research additionally indicates that Elvis Presley is Obama's 21st cousin 3 times removed.[155]


Charles Goodnight
 According to Chicago Sun-Times reporter Scott Fornek, another Obama progenitor, Catherine Goodnight, was the grandniece of George Goodnight, who was in turn great-grandfather of famed cattleman Charles Goodnight.[151]


Harry S. Truman
 Actor Duvall is distant cousins with United States President Harry Truman, who's likewise a fourth cousin, four times removed, of Obama's.[151]

Georgia O'Keeffe
 Notable women Obama is related to include painter Georgia O’Keeffe.


Five volumes of family genealogy (as compiled at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah), were presented by Mormon leaders to Obama in July 2009. In a statement, Obama said he was "looking forward to reading through the materials with my daughters. It’s something our family will treasure for years to come."[156]

Moneygall, Ireland, resident Henry Healy, Barack Obama's eighth cousin, became known for having initiated a visit by the U.S. president in May 2011 to Healy's hometown.[157]

Index

Links to entries in this article
Alphabetically arranged by:
family person family person
 Key:  Underscored:  Now or once a member of Barack Obama's household.  Personal name bolded:  Living.                      
A  Abo Obama · Ann Dunham · Auma Obama B Baker  Ruth
 Barack Obama · Barack Obama, Sr. · Bernard Obama
C  Capers Funnye · Charles Payne · Craig Robinson D Dunham  Ann · Jonathan · Madelyn · Ralph · Stanley
 David Ndsandjo
F Funnye  Capers G  George Obama
 Fraser Robinson III · Fraser Robinson, Jr. H  Habiba Akumu Obama · Hawa Auma Obama · Hussein Onyango Obama
J
K 
L 		  Jim Robinson · Jonathan Dunham
 Konrad Ng
 Lolo Soetoro		 M  Madelyn Dunham · Malia Obama · Malik Obama · Marian Robinson · Maya Soetoro‑Ng) · Michelle Obama
N Ndesandjo  David · Mark · Ruth N Ng  Konrad · Maya
O Obama  Abo · Auma · Barack · Barack Sr. · Bernard · George · Habiba Akumu · Hawa Auma · Hussein Onyango · Kezia · Malia · Malik · Michell · Omar Onyango · Sarah (aunt) · Sarah Onyango · Sasha · Sayid · Yusuf O Onyango  Zeituni
Onyango Obama (grandfather) · Omar Obama / Onyango Obama (uncle)
P Payne  Charles · Madelyn R Robinson  Craig · Fraser III · Fraser Jr. · Marian · Jim · Michelle
Ralph Dunham · Ruth Ndesandjo
S Soetoro /

Soetoro-Ng

  Lolo

 Maya

 W Wolfley  Robert
Sarah Obama (aunt) · Sarah Onyango  · Sasha Obama · Sayid Obama · Stanley Dunham Y
Z 		   Yusuf Obama
 Zeituni Onyango

See also

References

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