Meet Your Cousin, the First Lady: DNA gives new insights into Michelle Obama's roots

The New York Times ^ | 17 Jun 2012 | Rachel L Swarns

[Cronos]

Joan Tribble held tightly to her cane as she ventured into the overgrown cemetery where her people were buried. There lay the pioneers who once populated north Georgia’s rugged frontier, where striving white men planted corn and cotton, fought for the Confederacy and owned slaves

The settlers interred here were mostly forgotten over the decades as their progeny scattered across the South, embracing unassuming lives. But one line of her family took another path, heading north on a tumultuous, winding journey that ultimately led to the White House

The white men and women buried here are the forebears of Mrs. Tribble, a retired bookkeeper who delights in her two grandchildren and her Sunday church mornings. They are also ancestors of Michelle Obama, the first lady.

...The bloodlines of Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Tribble extend back to a 200-acre farm that was not far from here. One of their common ancestors was Henry Wells Shields, Mrs. Tribble’s great-great-grandfather. He was a farmer and a family man who grew cotton, Indian corn and sweet potatoes. He owned Mrs. Obama’s maternal great-great-great-grandmother, Melvinia Shields, who was about 8 years old when she arrived on his farm sometime around 1852.

The DNA tests and research indicate that one of his sons, Charles Marion Shields, is the likely father of Melvinia’s son Dolphus, who was born around 1860. Dolphus T. Shields was the first lady’s maternal great-great-grandfather.

Melvinia was a teenager, perhaps around 15, when she gave birth to her biracial son. Charles was about 20.

..Contemporary America emerged from that multiracial stew, a nation peopled by the heirs of that agonizing time who struggled and strived with precious little knowledge of their own origins. By 1890, census takers counted 1.1 million Americans of mixed ancestry.

All four of Mrs. Obama’s grandparents had multiracial forebears.

[Astronaut]

For some reason, the moderator censored my comment about Moochelle having lots of cousins on the Wookie homeworld, which you have kindly identified for me.

[X-spurt]

If push came to shove and he was about to have the NBC shite hit the fan, they would suddenly have DNA linkage to Davis or X, either would qualify NBC. And the whole lib world would be crying about the poor boy never really knew who babydaddy be.

Look at side by side photos of nobama and Davis, its too easy.

[passionfruit]

Sometimes in very rural places, people didn’t see a real minister for years on end. So they married by moving in together, and didn’t have a ceremony until a minister came through the area.

[oh8eleven]

Sometimes in very rural places, people didn’t see a real minister for years on end. So they married by moving in together ...
Yeah, along with a shotgun.
While that may have been true in the sticks, my great grandparents lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
I've got a copy of their 1899 church wedding certificate and written diagonally across the top, in bold letters, is the word, "Confidential."

[Little Bill]

I was looking in my Family History I had a number of ancestors who confessed paternity at the Church door before the ceremony, swollen bride syndrome, I think.