Maybe He Bought It with Beer

Was Breckenridge, Colorado, named for local settler Thomas Breckenridge or for Vice President John C. Breckinridge?

[Robin] Theobald’s contention ... is that the town was indeed named after Thomas Breckenridge, then changed to “Breckinridge” when it was decided that taking the name of the vice president would enhance the possibility of getting a post office, then renamed yet again when the residents decided they didn’t want their town to be named after a member of the Confederate party.

The only hole left by such a hypothesis is, why would the town originally be named after such an insignificant settler? Thomas Breckenridge wasn’t known to be important for any reason more than the next guy.

Theobald’s response was vintage history mystery.

“The guy coulda bought a round for the house, and they decided to name the town after him,” he said. “It doesn’t mean he had to be the leader of the pack to have it named after him. Maybe he saved someone’s life and they wanted to honor him. Who knows?” [Link]

A Candidate's Canard

John McCain claimed in his memoir Faith of My Fathers to be descended from Scottish king Robert the Bruce.

Asked by the Guardian to investigate McCain's family history, genealogists and medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as "wonderful fiction" and "baloney".

Claims of Scottish medieval ancestry, [Dr. Katie Stevenson] said, are virtually impossible to prove unless traced through rare documentation. "There are no records of that nature. Any historian will tell you that it's virtually impossible to prove ancestry through the middle ages."

A spokesman for McCain said last night: "The ancestry claim is based upon a genealogical study the McCain family had in their possession, which traced the McCain family roots back to Robert the Bruce." [Link]

Marriage Can Be Liberating

No proof has been found, but Conservative MP Boris Johnson insists that his ancestor bought himself a wife.

Mr Johnson says his great-great-grandmother, a Circassian slave from a region in southern Russia, was sold to his great-great-grandfather after she fled from war to Turkey in around 1862.

She was set free only when the couple later married.

Yesterday, Mr Johnson insisted he was the "proud offspring of Turkish immigrants", saying: "This is not in any way casting aspersions on my great-great-grandfather.

"He wasn't a slave owner, he was a slave marrier." [Link]

Politician Caught in Family Fib

Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff has claimed to be the grandson of radio and television pioneer David Sarnoff. Well, he's not.

On Monday, Sarnoff attempted to correct the record. David is his great-uncle, not his granddaddy. “I know very little about my family,” he said. “My understanding is that he is my great-uncle or something like that.”

David’s connection with the Sarnoff clan ended in 1969, when his father Joel divorced his mother, the commissioner added. “I don’t know my grandfather’s name,” Sarnoff replied when asked the identity of his paternal granddad. “I just remember he had big hands.” [Link]

David Sarnoff's niece says, "I haven’t a clue who this man is. He is certainly not David’s grandson, nephew, or otherwise. He is not related to us."

Family History Makes Strange Bedfellows

Next November, cousins Mark Udall and Tom Udall will be running for the Senate, and their second cousin, Gordon Smith, will be running for reelection to the same body. The Udalls are Democrats, Smith a Republican.

The Udalls are descendants of one David King Udall, who as a year-old child was brought by his parents on the trek to Utah led by Brigham Young. As a young man, he was sent to Arizona and lived to be president of the Mormons' Mesa, Ariz., temple until 1934.

Having taken two wives, David Udall ran afoul of territorial law enforcement officials in the 1880s. He served a brief term for perjury, having to do with an affidavit filed on a land claim by one Miles Romney -- Mitt Romney's great-grandfather.

Baron Goldwater, uncle of the future senator and father of modern conservatism, bailed David Udall out of jail. [Link]

Politician Flip-Flops on Birth Date

Sen. Robert Byrd—the oldest and longest-serving member of the Senate—celebrated the wrong birthday for decades. He was born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr., in Wilkesboro, N. C., but his name was changed when he was adopted by his aunt and uncle.

His natural mother died Nov. 10, 1918, a victim of a national influenza epidemic, [Byrd aide Cindy] Huber said.

“When Sen. Byrd met one of his brothers — I think this was in the 1970s — he told him that his birthday was Nov. 20, not Jan. 15,” Huber said.

Since the Byrds in West Virginia had no children, they adopted the future senator but somehow confusion developed as to his actual birth date, the staff spokesperson said, and wasn’t cleared up until the brother came to see him. [Link]

Giuliani Related to Himself

A Genealogue News Flash [What's That?]

A genealogist tied to the Romney camp has discovered that the parents of Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani were distantly related, making Giuliani his own eighth cousin once removed.

"Never in a million years would I have guessed I'm related to someone like me," Giuliani said today in a telephone interview. "I guess there's a black sheep in every family!"

Campaign workers were stunned to learn that their candidate is related to a man who once called members of the NRA "extremists," cheated on his wife, and was kissed by Donald Trump while dressed as a drag queen. A spokesman downplayed the connection, calling it "genetically irrelevant" and criticizing Romney for his involvement in such a "desperate ploy."

This news comes on the heels of other genealogical discoveries on the campaign trail. It was learned last week that Barack Obama is related to Dick Cheney, and only yesterday Fred Thompson was found to share common ancestry with John Edward's hair stylist.

Asked for further comment, Giuliani invoked 9/11 several times, and then hung up to answer a call from his wife.

First Fox Was a Fuchs

Vicente Fox's grandfather pursued the American Dream all the way to Mexico.

Fox's family name is actually Fuchs, a German name that was changed to Fox at some point. His grandfather, Joseph Louis Fox, was born in Cincinnati in 1865, attended Woodward High School and moved to Mexico at age 32. His son, Jose Luis Fox, married Mercedes Quesada and had nine children, including Vicente Fox Quesada, who served as president from 2000 to 2006. [Link]

Barack Related to Infamous Dick

Lynne Cheney says that her husband is related to Barack Obama.

In an interview on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon, Mrs. Cheney said that in the course of researching her husband's genealogy for her new book, "Blue Skies, No Fences," she discovered that the two public figures share an ancestor eight generations ago.

"Think about this," Mrs. Cheney said. "This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor, a man that came to Maryland, could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama's." [Link]

By my count, it's more like ten generations back (assuming that Mareen Duvall is the shared ancestor). Two extra generations may not seem like much, but when it comes to Dick Cheney, it's always best to keep one's distance.

Romney's a Deserter's Descendant

Genealogical muckraking is again rocking the world of presidential politics.

[E]xactly 150 years ago, an ancestor of Mitt Romney deserted from U.S. Army troops sent to put down a purported Mormon rebellion in Utah.

Carl Heinrich (Charles Henry) Wilcken, Romney's great-great-grandfather, would give Mormons information about approaching troops, eventually joined the LDS Church and ultimately became a bodyguard and confidant of two church presidents.

The middle name of Romney's father, former Michigan Gov. George W. Romney (also once a presidential candidate), is Wilcken, after that soldier-ancestor. [Link]

Underage Politicians

When Henry Clay first became a United States Senator in 1806, he was not yet old enough to meet the constitutional requirements of the office.

Henry Clay first entered the Senate when he was some months under the constitutional age of thirty years, having been appointed by the governor of Kentucky to fill a vacancy in that body. The reason why this was allowed and was not made a subject of protest is found in the fact that Clay was universally believed to be more than thirty. He had had an elder brother, also named Henry Clay, who died while quite young. The record of his birth was supposed to be the record of the birth of the great Henry Clay, who was therefore thought to be constitutionally eligible in respect to age. When the facts finally came out, Clay was past thirty, and so there was nothing to do about it. The case, however, is unique in the annals of American history. [Link]

Well, not exactly unique. Armistead Thomson Mason of Virginia was a few months younger than Clay when he was sworn in in 1816, and John Henry Eaton of Tennessee took his oath of office in 1818 at the tender age of 28.

Apparently no one asked John Eaton how old he was. In those days of large families and poorly kept birth records, he may not have been able to answer that question. Perhaps it was only later that he determined the birth date which now appears on his tombstone, confirming his less-than-constitutional age. [Link]

Two other Senators were elected at age 29, but waited until after their birthdays to be sworn in: Rush Dew Holt of West Virginia in 1935, and Joseph Biden of Delaware in 1973.

Adopted Aunt Finds Nephews Nearby

Maine State Senator Paula Benoit, herself an adoptee, co-sponsored a bill that would allow adopted children access to their original birth certificates. Not long after the bill was signed into law in June, she learned that her birth parents were Lillian Turner Bryant and Derriel Bryant.

She sent an e-mail to Sen. Bruce Bryant, D-Dixfield, and asked if he recognized the names of her parents.

She had spoken with Bryant before and had even joked with him about the possibility that they were related, since Benoit had always known that her birth name was Laurel Bryant.

"But even as I was e-mailing Sen. Bryant, I didn't put two and two together," Benoit said. "It was almost too far-fetched to even think about."

Bryant e-mailed her back saying that Lillian and Derriel Bryant were his grandparents. [Link]

Benoit has a second biological nephew serving in the Legislature as well: Rep. Mark Bryant, D-Windham, the brother of Bruce Bryant.

'Dat turn the world upside down'

Danette Holmes Burnette discovered that her great-great-grandfather, a slave named Cornelius Holmes, was owned by U.S. Congressman Preston Brooks.

The same Preston Brooks who beat a senator unconscious on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1856 after that senator denounced slavery.

The incident sparked a national furor, prompting Brooks' resignation and return to office, shortly before the Civil War.

Burnette even found an interview with Cornelius among the Slave Narratives on the Library of Congress website.

"Dat turn the world upside down," is what Cornelius Holmes told the interviewer of what Preston Brooks did. [Link]

A Politician on the Wrong Side of Town

A monument on Loudon Road in Concord, New Hampshire, marks the location where Isaac Hill—a former governor and U.S. senator—lived.

But Hill never lived there. He lived on Main Street, where he ran the New Hampshire Patriot newspaper and courted politicians. For years, the mistake has irked local historians.

"A lot of the evidence of the man is gone," said former city planner Randall Raymond. "What remains is a monument that's worn and in the wrong place. And this was an important man."

The marker sits in front of a Goodwill store, but belongs in front of a CVS pharmacy across the river.

"How a granite monument crossed the Merrimack, I don't know," Raymond said. "I don't think it floats." [Link]

Immigration Expert Running for Senate

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning is challenging Senator Chuck Hagel in the next Republican primary. He says that Hagel is all wrong on immigration.

I've got a picture here on my desk of my great great grandfather and my great great grandmother who came to Ellis Island in 1861 and ended up in Nebraska, in the little town of Bruning, by the way. They came in the right way… [Link]

The immigration station at Ellis Island didn't open until 1892, which suggests that Bruning's ancestors bypassed the station at Castle Garden to slip into the country undetected. If Mr. Bruning thinks that that is the "right way" to enter this great land of ours, I have to wonder how many fugitive Taliban leaders he's harboring in his basement.

(As it happens, Bruning's ancestors actually did pass through Castle Garden in 1861, before settling in Thayer County, Nebraska.)

Mitt's Mexican Cousin

Today's Boston Globe has a story about the side of the Romney family that remained in Mexico after Mitt's ancestors returned to America.

Mike Romney, a school administrator in this small town in the Mexican desert, and Mitt Romney, a candidate for president of the United States, have never met.

But the two distant cousins are just a year apart in age, and both are descendants of the same great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, who fled the United States and, at the direction of church leaders, helped create this colony 122 years ago as a refuge for polygamous Mormons. [Link]

Gerry Did More Than Mander

Elbridge Gerry is remembered most for inspiring the invention of the word "gerrymandering" by creatively redrawing the electoral map of Massachusetts to his party's advantage. One of his descendants wishes his other accomplishments were as well remembered.

Elbridge T. "Elbert" Gerry Jr., the great-great-great grandson of the former governor, took exception to the historical pigeonholing of his ancestor as an electoral usurper, pointing out that the late Gerry had signed the Declaration of Independence, was a Bay State delegate to the original Constitutional Convention, and represented the new nation in the XYZ Affair, a diplomatic spat with France that led to the two-year "Quasi-War."

Asked if he has been troubled by the mispronunciation of the family name - pronounced with the hard "g" sound, while "gerrymander" is typically pronounced with a soft "g" - Gerry replied, "Been trying to correct it for years." [Link]

No Iron in His Blood

A descendant of Otto von Bismarck is being called "Germany's laziest politician."

Booing and laughter broke out at a regional party meeting roll call on Sunday in Mölln, Germany, when the great-great grandson of Germany's legendary "Iron Chancellor" came up absent -- again.

Count Carl-Eduard von Bismarck, 46, isn't living up to his disciplined family name. The national politician frequently avoids local party obligations and colleagues, isn't present in his electoral district and doesn't answer voters' questions. [Link]

Campaign Rocked by Immigration Scandal

The records of U.S.-Mexico Border Crossings recently put online by Ancestry.com reveal something shocking about a certain presidential candidate whose father was born in Mexico.

Ancestry.com couldn't locate records showing when Mitt Romney's parents and grandparents returned to the United States to live.... [Link]

Before you get alarmed, let me assure you that I have already notified the Department of Homeland Security about this situation, and that proceedings are underway to deport Mr. Romney and his fence-jumping family back to Chihuahua.

President Bush has weighed in on the issue, saying that if Congress would promptly institute his guest-worker program, the Romneys could stay in this country and do the jobs that Americans don't want to do—like picking lettuce and talking to Bill O'Reilly.

Obama's Old Irish Home

Church of Ireland rector Stephen Neill says he has found Barack Obama's ancestral village in Ireland. It's a place called Moneygall in Co. Offaly.

"I would be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this is categorical evidence of Mr Obama's link to this part of the world," said the rector.

It was initially believed the would-be president's third great grandfather Fulmuth Kearney was the only one of his family to have sailed from Ireland to New York aged 19 in 1850. But the newly-uncovered records show other family members had in fact emigrated to America since the 1790s. [Link]

Update: Megan has more details on the search for Obama's roots. The records found by Canon Neill were the final piece of the puzzle she and her Ancestry.com cohorts had been working on since the Senator's Irish heritage was first revealed in March.