Posted on 01/27/2005 5:09:57 PM PST by Cornpone
DUBLIN -- U.S. President George W. Bush is descended from Norman nobleman Richard de la Clare, known as Strongbow, who led the invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, genealogists said yesterday.
Mr. Bush is also descended from the Celtic king of the Irish province of Leinster, Dermot McMurrough, who was denounced as a traitor and whose daughter Aoife married Strongbow. The Bush family is already aware that it is descended from Norman gentry who lived in England in the late Middle Ages. But Irish historian Ann Griffin Bernstorff found the Irish genealogical link by working on the Ross, one of the biggest tapestries in Europe that retraces the birth of New Ross, founded in 1207 by William Marshall, son of Strongbow.
Separated by 30 generations, Mr. Bush is a direct descendant of William Marshall, who was married to Isabelle de Clare.
"It's all very intriguing really," Ms. Griffin Bernstorff told the Irish Times.
"We had heard rumours that this was a possibility, then one of our committee members had a Republican friend in Chicago," she said. "We got the genealogy chart from there and made the link to the de Clare family. It's an ancient Irish family, one of the oldest on the island, stretching back to the mists of time."
Mr. Bush is also descended from Anne Marbury Hutchinson, an English Puritan who arrived in America in 1634 aboard the Griffin and who settled in Boston.
According to the family tree established by Anne and Alexis Bernstorff, Anne Marbury was a direct descendant of Anglo-Norman nobleman John the Strange, and before him Gilbert the Red, Gilbert de Clare, count of Gloucester and Hereford.
Gilbert the Red, who married Joan of England, daughter of King Edward I, was none other than the grandson of William Marshall, whom the Plantagenets called the finest flower of chivalry.
Aw, it is good to be able to blame someone for your shortcomings!
My wife is also a direct descendant of William Marshal and Isabella de Clare. They had nine children, to my knowledge and there are probably millions of people in the US today who are descendants of these two.
-PJ
I have the power!!;-)
Distant genealogy gets pretty wacky. For example, consider at this range (30 generations), assuming that there wasn't overlap and inbreeding among all the lines that led to the President (which there was), he would have had 2 raised to the 30th power ancestors. That is 1,073,741,824. Over a billion. There weren't even actually a billion people in the whole world yet.
Virtually any who can fully trace their ancestry for 30 generations is almost guaranteed to have multiple relations with anyone else, at least from the same continent.
" Actually, Kerry's paternal grandfather is Jewish. His original family name is "Kohn" not "Kerry"
That's what always drove me crazy about Kerry, well, actually one of many things.
Kerry knew his mother's side was English and yet, Kerry claimed that it was not until the Boston Globe did a genealogical search in 2003
that he discovered he was, in fact , the grandson of Austrian immigrants and not Irish immigrants.
His grandparents Fritz and Ida Kohn emigrated to the US, when they were in their early 30s , late 20s respectively.
While the grandfather killed himself before Kerry was born, his grandmother Ida lived until he was 17.
Grandma Ida must have spoken with an accent and it was not an Irish brogue.
I also find it hard to believe that Bubbe Ida , even though a convert to Catholicism, would have abandoned all of her Yiddish idioms ,especially the terms of endearment.
And the media played along with Kerry's charade.
Not one of them dared ask Kerry-
" Senator, when your Grandmother spoke and her accent was similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger or Wolfgang Puck-
could that have been a hint that you weren't Irish ? "
I know. We already know that everyone is descended from Lucy but Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe is the only surviving, direct descendant which is why he has a legitimate claim to the entire planet...sorry to digress. I'm just desperately searching for some way to defend my property rights.
Thanks.
I'm struggling here with a right response to Bush'a fault posters. Who have got on my last nerve.
Moose and cheese keeps rattling in me brain.....
And without just one of them in the line, not one of us would be here. Think on that one for a second. Just one, one person missing and we are not born. Simple maybe a stupid thought? Yes, but I say its a amazing a lot of people are even here. There were wars, plagues, starvations and what not.
Hey, I'm descended from Elizabeth Plantagenet also. And from her husband Humphrey de Bohun VIII, 4th Earl of Hereford and Essex. As is most of England I'll bet.
Next thing we'll hear is that George W. Bush can be traced back to Adam and Eve. Imagine
I am related to President Bush through his mother, as we share a common Mayflower descendent, a boy who came over at the age of 16 by the name of Henry Samson. Professional geneologists have traced Henry Samson back to a man by the name of Wido de Reinbudcourt, a doomsday governor under William the Conquerer- so Bush is related to him, too.
Wow, if this is true, I'm related to President Bush!
Mmm, you have fine taste in cider, sir!
I thought "John the Strange" was the guy GWB just beat in November!
As if the Irish don't hate Bush enough. F-them.
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