Bill Weld

Weld in 2008, photo By Matthew W. Hutchins, Harvard Law Record (Own work) [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Birth Name: William Floyd Weld

Place of Birth: Smithtown, New York, U.S.

Date of Birth: July 31, 1945

Ethnicity: English (mostly), with distant Dutch, Welsh, French Huguenot, and Scottish

Bill Weld, also known as William Weld, is an American attorney, businessperson, author, and politician. As a Republican, he served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, from 1981 to 1986, U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, from 1986 to 1988, and Governor of Massachusetts, from January 3, 1991 to July 29, 1997.

He was the Libertarian Party’s nominee for Vice President of the United States in 2016. He was also a candidate for the Republican Party’s nomination for President of the United States in 2020.

Bill is the son of Mary Blake (Nichols) and David Weld, an investment banker. His religion is Episcopalian. He is from a prominent family, with many ancestral lines that have been in the U.S., specifically Massachusetts and New York, since the 1600s.

Bill’s first cousin was novelist John Nichols. Bill is married to journalist, magazine editor, and novelist Leslie Marshall. He has five children with his former wife, professor Susan Roosevelt Weld, who is the great-granddaughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.

Bill is a patrilineal descendant of captain Joseph Weld (1599-1646), one of the founders of the prominent Boston Brahmin Weld family of Massachusetts. Among Joseph Weld’s other descendants are actress Tuesday Weld, actress and director Polly Draper, and her children, actors and musicians Nat Wolff and Alex Wolff. Bill is a fourth cousin of Tuesday, through their shared great-great-great-grandparents William Gordon Weld and Hannah Minot.

Bill’s paternal grandfather was Francis Minot Weld, Jr. (the son of Francis Minot Weld and Fanny Elizabeth Bartholomew). Bill’s grandfather Francis was born in New York, New York. Bill’s great-grandfather Francis was born in Dalton, Coös, New Hampshire, the son of Thomas Swan Weld and Sarah Sumner; Thomas’s father, Bill’s great-great-great-grandfather, was shipmaster and ship owner William Gordon Weld, who owned and commanded the armed ship Jason, with which he defeated pirates off the coast of Tunisia in 1802. Bill’s great-grandmother Fanny was born in Connecticut, the daughter of George Medad Bartholomew and Fanny/Fannie Griswold Fowler.

Bill’s paternal grandmother was Margaret Low White (the daughter of William Augustus White and Harriet Hillard). Margaret was born in New York. Bill’s great-grandfather William was the son of Alexander Moss White and Elizabeth Hart Treadway. Harriet was born in Manchester, England, the daughter of American parents, John Babcock Hillard, Jr., from Richmond, Virginia, and Harriet Low, who was born in Salem, Essex, Massachusetts.

Bill’s maternal grandfather was John Treadwell Nichols (the son of John White Treadwell Nichols and Mary Blake Slocum). Bill’s grandfather John was born in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, and was a prominent ichthyologist and ornithologist. Bill’s great-grandfather John was the son of George Nichols and Susan Farley Treadwell. Mary was the daughter of William Henry Slocum, whose father was born in Wales, and of Sarah Elizabeth Williams.

Bill’s maternal grandmother was Cornelia duBois Floyd (the daughter of John Gelston Floyd, Jr. and Julia Floyd DuBois). Cornelia was born in Englewood, Bergen, New Jersey. John was the son of John Gelston Floyd, who was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York, from March 4, 1839 to March 3, 1843, and again, from March 4, 1851 to March 3, 1853; and of Sarah Backus Kirkland. Sarah’s father, Joseph Kirkland, Jr., a lawyer and politician, was also a congressman from New York, from December 3, 1821 to March 4, 1823, and was Mayor of Utica, New York, from 1832 to 1836. Bill’s great-grandmother Julia was the founder of the Nursery and Child’s Hospital in New York City, now in the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Her father, Cornelius DuBois, was a lawyer and tobacco merchant. Her mother was prominent sculptor and philanthropist Mary Ann Delafield, who was born in England, to an American father and an English mother, who herself was from Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire.

Cornelius DuBois’ father, Cornelius DuBois, co-founded the University of New York, and was Governor of the New York Hospital. John Gelston Floyd’s grandfather, Bill’s great-great-great-great-grandfather William Floyd (1734-1821), was a congressman from New York, from March 4, 1789 to March 3, 1791, and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Another great-great-great-great-grandfather through this line, David Gelston, was a Delegate to the Continental Congress, and a New York State Senator.

Among Bill’s many prominent ancestors also is William Brewster (c. 1566-1644), a Mayflower passenger and noted Pilgrim. Among many of William’s other descendants are actors Jordana Brewster, Paget Brewster, Austin Butler, Chevy Chase, Taylor Lautner, Seth MacFarlane, and Elisabeth Shue, actors and models Noah Mills and Brandon Routh, director, producer, screenwriter, and cinematographer Zack Snyder, singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, soccer player Clint Dempsey, U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and Governor of Arkansas Winthrop Rockefeller.

Bill was a fourth cousin of musician David Crosby. Bill’s maternal great-great-great-grandparents, Nicoll Floyd and Phebe Gelston, were also David’s paternal great-great-great-grandparents. The two were also fourth cousins, once removed, through their common ancestors John Delafield and Ann Hallett.

Sources: Genealogies of Bill Weld – https://www.geni.com
https://famouskin.com

Bill’s paternal grandparents, Francis Minot Weld, Jr. and Margaret Low White, on the 1910 U.S. Census – https://www.familysearch.org

Bill’s mother on the 1930 U.S. Census – https://www.familysearch.org