Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Obama in 2015, photo by Prphotos

Birth Name: Barack Hussein Obama II

Place of Birth: Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.

Date of Birth: August 4, 1961

Ethnicity:
*father – Luo Kenyan
*mother – English, small amounts of Scottish, Irish, German, Welsh, Swiss-German, French Huguenot, possibly remote African

Barack Obama is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 44th President of the United States, from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017. He was elected to the position in 2008 and 2012. He was previously a Member of the Illinois Senate, from January 8, 1997 to November 4, 2004, and a U.S. Senator from Illinois, from January 3, 2005 to November 16, 2008. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009. Barack Obama is the first person of significant African descent to have served as President of the United States. He is also the only person born in the 1960s to have won a major party’s presidential caucus and/or primary, and the only U.S. President born after the 1940s (thus far).

He was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2008 and 2012.

President Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. His father was black and his mother was white. His father, Barack Hussein Obama, a governmental economist, was born in Kanyadhiang Village, Rachuonyo, Kenya, and was a Kenyan of the Luo tribe. His mother, Stanley Ann (Dunham), an anthropologist, was born in Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas, and had English, and small amounts (to varying degrees) of Scottish, Irish, German, Welsh, Swiss-German, and French Huguenot, ancestry. His father was a Muslim and his mother was from a family of non-practicing Baptists and Methodists. President Obama practices Protestant Christianity.

President Obama is married to lawyer and writer Michelle Obama (born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson). Their children are Malia Obama and Sasha Obama. He lived in Indonesia from six to ten years old.

President Obama is the second person of significant non-white ancestry to have been nominated for, and elected as, President or Vice President of the United Sates by a major party. Charles Curtis, whose mother was of considerable Native American ancestry, was the first, and served as Vice President from 1929 to 1933. Kamala Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian descent, and who began serving as Vice President of the United States in 2021, is the third.

Genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner wrote President Obama’s ancestral lineage out as such, with approximate fractions:

*50% Luo Kenyan
*35.06% English
*4.69% Scottish
*3.91% Irish
*3.71% German
*1.56% Welsh
*0.98% Swiss
*0.1% French

President Obama’s paternal grandfather was Onyango (whose name was changed to Hussein Onyango Obama; the son of Obama and Nyaoke). Onyango was born in Alego. President Obama’s great-grandfather Obama was the son of Opiyo and Marrgorat.

President Obama’s paternal grandmother was Habiba/Habibah Akumu/Akkumu Nyanjango/Nyanjoga (the daughter of Njango/Njoga and Bwogi Otore). Habiba was born in Karabonda. Njoga was the son of Okela.

President Obama’s maternal grandfather was Stanley Armour Dunham (the son of Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham and Ruth Lucille Armour). Stanley was born in Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas. Ralph was the son of Jacob William Dunham and Mary Anne/Ann Kearney, whose father was Irish. Ruth was the daughter of Harry Ellington Armour and Gabriella Lee “Gabie”/”Gabbie” Clark.

President Obama’s maternal grandmother was Madelyn Lee “Toot” Payne (the daughter of Rolla Charles “R. C.” Payne and Leona Belle McCurry). Madelyn was born in Peru, Chautauqua, Kansas. Rolla was the son of Charles Thomas Payne and Della L. Wolfley. Leona was the daughter of Thomas Creekmore McCurry and Margaret Belle Wright, who was born in Dry Fork, Carroll, Arkansas.

President Obama’s matrilineal line can be traced to Sarah Wade “Sally” Ray, who was born, c. 1793, in Virginia.

Aside from being the first person of African descent to serve as President of the United States, President Obama is the first person of African descent to be the presidential nominee of a major American party.

President Obama is the fourth black American to have won a caucus and/or primary for a major American political party’s presidential nomination, having won 29+ states in 2008, and 50+ states in 2012. The previous winners are:
*Walter E. Fauntroy (1972; Democratic; won Washington, D.C.)
*Shirley Chisholm (1972; Democratic; won 3 contests, including New Jersey)
*Jesse Jackson (Democratic; in 1984, he won 2+ states; in 1988, he won 9+ states)

President Obama has distant Irish ancestry, going back to his great-great-great-grandfather, Falmouth/Fulmoth Kearney, who arrived in the States in 1850, from Moneygall in Ireland. Research done by a team of genealogists has suggested that President Obama’s mother had remote African-American ancestry (in the 1600s), through possible descent from a slave named John Punch.

In page 13 of his autobiography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, 1995, President Obama writes that a distant ancestor of his mother’s “had indeed been a full-blooded Cherokee” [Native American]. No Cherokee Native American ancestry has yet been documented/verified for President Obama.

President Obama has referred to his mother’s ancestors as “Scotch-Irish mostly,” though their ancestry was predominantly English, with a smaller amount of Scots-Irish.

One of President Obama’s maternal ancestors, his ninth great-grandfather, Richard Singletary, was born, c. 1599, in Surfleet, Lincolnshire, England, to Francis Singletary and Agnes Cook. Richard’s son, Jonathan Singletary (later Dunham), was born, c. 1639, in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts Bay Colony. President Obama’s Dunham line traces back to Jonathan.

Sources: Genealogies of President Obama – http://www.wargs.com
http://www.geni.com
http://familypedia.wikia.com
http://www.wikitree.com
http://famouskin.com

Genealogies of President Obama’s parents – http://www.findagrave.com

Article about President Obama’s Irish ancestry – http://living.oneindia.in

Article suggesting that President Obama’s mother had remote African-American ancestry – http://www.nytimes.com

ethnic

Curious about ethnicity

348 Responses

  1. allennox says:

    The reason he says hes black and the media sees him as black is because his daddy o is black.George Zimmerman the guy who shot Treyvon martin had a white daddy and a Peruvian mixed with some black mother.But yet they referred to him as the white man who shot the unarmed black teen never acknowledging his mom heritage same with Obama they have ignored the mothers gene completely.I wonder if he had a white father and a black mother would they still be referring to him as the first ‘black president’.

    • fuzzybear44 says:

      IMO I think he ID’s more with his Black side, because of the era he grew up in. See unlike the fg of today, mulattoes of the 60’s and 70’s were seen as black. Also unlike the first generations of today, those of the 60’s and 70’s were in middle of the black power movement, and the solidarity that came with that. He knows he has a white mother, but I’m sure growing up ,he was reminded that he was a young black man. and he learned to embrace it(IMO)

  2. ibarro says:

    Obama is biracial not black, he has both Afrcoid & Caucasoid features, he needs to identify what he really is = mixed

    • fuzzybear44 says:

      The Man says he’s black, why can’t you guys let that go. He knows he has European blood, but he sees himself as a black man .When black wanted to say they were mixed, white people said no. Now that we don’t want to say that, you try to make us. There Probably millions of Black Americans who have mixed features (my entire family does). However so what, you’re going to try and make me say I mixed to

  3. phaedra says:

    Is it wrong to find him so attractive? Like facially, not because he has money and power.

  4. cwm85 says:

    Very disappointed in his failed middle east policy and lack of urgency over these terrorist attacks. I have voted for him but his mismanagement is one of complete ignorance and stupidity and stubbornness.

  5. Alex234 says:

    I never liked how he labels himself black yet he’s biracial. Talk about inaccuracy.

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