quote:
Dubya comes from one of Americas most powerful families. They
Oh, its much more incestuous than that:
Candidates have same Essex ancestor
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday September 21, 2004
The Guardian
It is perhaps not surprising that the battle between George Bush and John Kerry has turned so nasty - it is, after all, a family affair. Both men are descendants of the same Essex man.
Their common ancestor was a member of the minor Essex gentry called Edmund Reade who was born and died in Wickford without ever seeing the New World his offspring would fight over 400 years later.
However, Reade's daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, both sailed to New England with their mother, probably in the 1630s. Both had married into powerful families, Winthrop and Lake, who ultimately begot the two presidential candidates.
The common heritage makes the president and Senator Kerry ninth cousins, twice removed, according to Gary Boyd Roberts, a Massachusetts genealogist who has researched their family backgrounds.
"They were part of the upper classes in the 1560s and they are still part of the upper classes," Mr Roberts said, but pointed out that Mr Kerry has more "cosmopolitan" elements in his family tree.
His father's side of the family were Jews from the Austro-Hungarian empire who converted to Catholicism and changed their name from Khn to Kerry before emigrating to America in 1904.
Mr Bush, the son of a former president and grandson of a senator, can trace his lineage to the Mayflower immigrants, and to some of the oldest families in the country. The only exotic element is a "sliver of Swiss and German on his mother's side", Mr Roberts said.
The Essex connection is the closest bloodline linking the candidates, but they have seven other common ancestors
Candidates have same Essex ancestor | World news | The Guardian
300 years of democracy and still ruled by English blue-bloods.
This message has been edited by contracycle, 09-21-2004 10:45 AM
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