Genes in the News
Posted By Thomas on October 12, 2009
Genealogy has been getting quite a lot of print, recently. Here are some highlights:
First Lady Michelle Obama Traced Back to 6-Year Old Slave Girl
Genealogist Megan Smolenyak found this one. Listed among the willed possessions of David Patterson was Michelle Obama’s 6-year old great-great-grandmother, who’s is listed later on a census as Mulatto. So, this proves President Obama’s earlier campaign statement that his wife is the “daughter of slaves and slave owners”. In an excellent comment in the Voice Online, Historian Edward Ball has a great quote: “We are not separate tribes of Latinos and whites and blacks in America. We’ve all mingled, and we have done so for generations.”
140 Years of Creating New Families
The New York Foundling, the city’s largest welfare agency, just celebrated its 140th year anniversary. The NY Times ran an excellent piece on this institution, where people who are now tracking their personal histories have found this organization in their past. Having a family that extended out through the Midwest, I was particularly interested in this passage: ”Into the early 20th century, these [Orphan Trains] shuttled tens of thousands of orphaned or abandoned children from New York to families in the Midwest, though the intent often seemed as much to supply farmers with field hands as children with families…”
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Related
In news that shouldn’t surprise anyone, NEHGS has discovered that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the team that starred in and co-wrote Good Will Hunting, are 10th cousins, once removed. Of course, at 10th cousins, the likelihood that they share any genetic material is quite remote. So, I guess this isn’t all that interesting, besides how the historical society has now 10 generations documented on each star, and they’re easy fodder for the million or so people out there to connect up.
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