Site Traces "O'Bama's" Ancestry To Ireland

[Fidel]

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Everybody knows presidential hopeful Barack Obama is blessed with the gift of the gab. Turns out it might be the Irish in him.

 

The junior senator from Illinois, seeking the Democratic nomination for the White House, has made much of his background as the son of a Kenyan father and American mother. Far less publicized is the European side of his family tree -- including, new research has found, a great-great-great grandfather from the heart of Ireland.

 

A genealogy Web site, Ancestry.com, has spent months looking to pin down the origins of Obama's ancestors -- including Fulmouth Kearney, who immigrated to the United States at 19 and has ties to Obama's Kansas-reared mother, Ann Dunham.

 

Kearney is a common name in Ireland with roots in many counties. But the Utah-based organization got lucky when it made a call in March to Canon Stephen Neill, a parish priest from the Anglican-affiliated Church of Ireland.

 

Neill had just inherited rolls of baptisms, marriages and deaths dating back to the 1700s from a late parishioner, who had kept the records in her home. In the index he found Joseph Kearney, Fulmouth's father, a cobbler in the village of Moneygall, County Offaly -- which, back in those days of British rule, was known as King's County.

 

Neill hadn't been told by Ancestry.com researchers why they wanted to know about the Kearneys of Moneygall. When he called them weeks later with his find, he was surprised to learn that Fulmouth was an ancestor of the Democrats' rising star.

 

"Everyone here says he's going to have to call himself O'Bama from now on," Neill said in an interview. "People are fascinated that such a remarkable man, and a potential president of the United States, could be connected to such a tiny, unremarkable place as Moneygall."

 

The village today is home to about 300 people, has two pubs, a Catholic church, and a Gaelic sports ground. A busy highway cuts through the middle.

 

Obama could put it on the tourist map. Locals have identified the spot where Joseph Kearney's shoe shop once stood, and the dilapidated building where his children went to school.

 

Neill said there are few, if any, Kearneys in the area today, citing parish records that say family members gradually emigrated to America from the 1790s to the 1850s.

 

But there are the Healys, who intermarried with the Kearneys back in the 1760s, and who have pinpointed the old Kearney family lands -- currently earmarked for a new state-funded housing project.

 

Retired farmer John Healy, 69, says the field in question "has always been known as Kearney's Gardens, and when I was growing up this is where the sunken remains of the house of the shoemaker Joseph Kearney, Fulmouth's father, lived and worked."

 

So, if Obama does win the Democratic nomination and election to become the 44th president, he would be the 16th with Irish ancestry.

 

Since documenting the Moneygall link to Fulmouth, Neill has been inundated with calls from the Irish and international media -- but, so far, not a peep from the Obama camp.

 

"There's been a deafening silence," Neill said. "Maybe they don't want to be seen cynically capitalizing on this, but it seems strange not to have any comment on it. He's played the Kenyan link strongly, so why not the Irish link?"

 

[was_usvirgin]

"Maybe they don't want to be seen cynically capitalizing on this, but it seems strange not to have any comment on it. He's played the Kenyan link strongly, so why not the Irish link?"

 

Maybe because the Irish would disown him.

 

Completely off topic but I'm in storytelling mode...

 

I knew an Irish lady, like Obama, from Chicago. Her mom married an older guy in Inishmore and, when he died, she was to inherit his land but they were run off the island by the locals and they eventually immigrated to the USA.

 

After her mom died, I accompanied her on her first trip back to Inishmore (with my father - she was his friend) and it was one of the most interesting things I've ever seen in my life.

 

Even though she left the island as a little girl, the older folks in the pub recongnized her immediately, and ignored her (you could hear the whispers though). After a couple of days, they finally warmed up to her and the stories started flowing. She didn't get the land back - that wasn't what she was looking for - but she got some kind of closure and admission as to what really happened way back when. Mum was basically considered a floozy and not worthy of the land, in their greedy estimation.

 

Seriously though, being a Dem, if Obama has any Irish connection he should play it up. Worked for the Kennedys.

 

Of course, it worked for Reagan too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

Kerry claimed for years to be Irish, since he was running in Massachusetts. Then it finally came out that his grandparents were Austrian Jews named Kahn who had changed their name to Kerry when the emigrated to America and became Catholics.

 

 

p.s. I've got Kearneys in my ancestry. Does that mean Obama is my cousin?

 

 

[Steve]

So is Shaquille O'Neal and Ron O'Neal (original Superfly in the '70s movie) :smirk:

 

Just about every black person in America has at least some european blood (usually UK) in them. I have a wee bit Welsh and Scot though you wouldn't know if you saw me...haha...a lot of american indian blood in blacks here as well.

[Flashermac]

Tiger Woods' papa, Col. Woods, was 1/4th Cherokee and 1/4th Caucasian. In one photo I saw of Col. Woods, he really looked like an Indian. His facial features clearly showed it.

 

I've read that if you are from a southern family that was already in the US before the Rev War, the odds are strong that you have some small amount of "Native American" ancestry. The earliest colonials were mostly single men, and married Indian women since they were the only women around. It's also said that if you are from an early southern family, the odds are fairly good that you have an African ancestor or two as well -- but white folks are much less eager to go looking for that one!

 

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

Just remembered something. Alex Haley, who wrote Roots, was multiracial. He told about doing research in Ireland on some of his white ancestors. He said the Irish priest in the church office was as helpful as could be, didn't seem to be racist in the least. But then he found out Haley was a Baptist and promptly stopped helping him! Seems it was all right to be black in Ireland, but not to be Protestant.

 

 

 

[Steve]

I had a great grandmother that dies in 1974. She was 106 and either her parents or grandparents were former slaves (can't recall which). She was very light-skinned and the family 'secret' was that she was actually the offspring of a white male and her 'father' wasn't really her biological. I wish I had known her to ask her some questions. She was around when things went from horse back to cars to plane. She lived through one of the most rapid changes in man. Seen two world wars. Amazing.

 

Flash, I read somewhere that a bigger than expected percentage of whites in the south and midwest had at least a drop or two of black blood and a higher percentage of native american blood. Native american blood is very high in a lot of blacks. Its very common for people to say they have some indian blood. Especially if your hair is a bit straighter and you're lighter than most.

I'm dark complected, you'd think there is not much of anything else in me...lol.

[Flashermac]

The US Census records are available to the public from 1930 on back. They start in 1790, but a slave would not be listed by name -- only by gender and age under the slave owner's name. From the 1870 census on, when there was no more slavery, everyone is "enumerated". I've helped black friends trace their familes back 200 years and sometimes a bit more. It's easy if you have some names to start with.

 

I remember a time when I was in the Heritage Room of our library at home and a 60-something white woman who was looking at the 1880 census happened to remark, "That's not right." I asked her what wasn't right. She said she was looking at her great grandparents and it said "M" by her great grandmother -- and she was female, not male. The census lists name, age, sex and race. She was looking at the race column, not sex. I pointed to the census explanations at the top of the page. Since Indians weren't counted, there were three classifications: W, B and M. That meant her great grandmaw was mulatto. The women's jaw dropped and she sat staring at the viewer. Since the great grandfather and the children were listed as W, I suppose the great grandmother had enough African that it showed a bit and the census taker marked her M. I told her not to worry about it, and just leave that out if it bothered her!

 

[Fidel]

As far as I know, I only have Irish in me. My cousin is big into genealogy and has traced my family on my mother's side to the same location back as far as records allow. There is a family grave in the village that is 800 years old. We haven't done the digging on my dad's side.

[Flashermac]

Probably find a Fir Bolg or something ...