Digging Up a Potential Presidential Pedigree : 5 Chief Executives Identified as Most Likely Candidates

Perched upon some branches of your family tree may be one or more American Presidents.

“The five Presidents you are most likely to be related to are Richard Nixon, Franklin Roosevelt, Millard Fillmore, Rutherford Hayes or William Howard Taft,” says Gary Boyd Roberts, an eminent genealogist who is an expert in presidential pedigrees and bloodlines of the rich and famous. Roberts is special projects director of America’s oldest genealogical society, the New England Historic Genealogical Society of Boston, Mass., and co-author of “American Ancestors and Cousins of the Princess of Wales.”

Female Line Died Out

Presidents’ Day, being celebrated today, commemorates two of our most famous Presidents--George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Ironically, Washington, the father of this country, had no children, and Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, was father of only one offspring who left descendants. (Lincoln’s son, Robert, produced a female line that died out this past year.)

“Anyone with early New England ancestry is probably related, though perhaps distantly, to five or six U.S. Presidents,” Roberts said.

The roots of 20 Presidents, some entwined, can be found in colonial New England, Roberts noted. That is why it is not unusual to find a presidential connection if you have New England ancestry predating the Revolutionary War.

Mayflower Forebears

In fact, six Presidents descended from one or more Mayflower passengers. They were the two Adamses, John and his son, John Quincy; Zachary Taylor; Ulysses S. Grant; William H. Taft and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

On the other hand, two chief executives, Andrew Johnson and Andrew Jackson, the 17th and seventh Presidents respectively, have family lines that have proven to be untraceable. Jackson, born nine years before the Revolutionary War started, was the son of an Andrew Jackson and Elizabeth Hutchinson, a couple who emigrated from Ireland to the Carolinas about 1765. They left a cold trail for genealogists.

Andrew Johnson was the son of Jacob Johnson and Mary (Polly) McDonough. Johnson, born in 1808, grew up in poverty in Raleigh, N.C. Nothing is known about his paternal line, and on his mother’s side, only information about her father, Andrew McDonough, a Revolutionary War soldier, is recorded.

Most Have British Roots

All but five of the 39 men who have been President have had predominantly or exclusively British roots. The exceptions being Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose forebears came from Holland; Herbert Hoover, with German and Swiss roots, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was of German ancestry.

Sixteen Presidents descended from families who arrived in America before 1677, with about a dozen of those traceable to progenitors who came to this country before 1640. The British branches of 22 of our chief executives originated in England, four in Scotland and three in Ireland, while five are of Scotch-Irish descent, meaning their ancestral home actually was in Scotland.

“There is absolutely no proof for it,” Roberts said, regarding the story that Abraham Lincoln’s mother was illegitimate. But her parentage is undocumented, and through the years the Lincoln/Hanks line has remained an unsolved mystery to historians and genealogists. Her father is presumed to have been a son of Joseph Hanks and a woman whose surname possibly was Berry.

Motherless at Age 9

Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, died in 1818 when he was only 9 years old. Evidently no Bible of her family survives, and of course no birth certificates were issued in 1784, the year she was born. Few records were generated in the 18th and 19th centuries that pertain to the poor families on the frontier of young America. Moreover, the names of our female ancestors were scrawled into the official record books only when they married or inherited property. Though her parents are not proven, the paternal grandparents who reared Nancy Hanks are known. They were Joseph Hanks and his wife, Nanny.

“All 26 Presidents prior to Wilson had at least one ancestor with Revolutionary War service and six were ‘Patriots’ themselves,” Roberts noted. “Presidents with no known colonial ancestry include Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan,” he said.

Green With Irish Branches

Wilson’s ancestors, both grandparents in fact, came from Scotland and Northern Ireland. Kennedy’s family tree is green with Irish branches--the immigrant Kennedy ancestor arrived in Massachusetts during the height of the Potato Famine. President Reagan, the 39th man to be President, has a pedigree that is one-half Irish, one-fourth Scot-Canadian and one-fourth English.

If your surname is the same as a President’s what are the chances that you are related to him?

“It depends on which President,” Roberts said. For example, most Van Burens are related to the eighth President who was of Dutch descent, the son of a Kinderhook, N.Y., tavern keeper.

“Colonial Dutch ancestry probably will connect you to the Roosevelts as well,” he said. All the Roosevelts are related, according to Roberts. (Actually they are only about one-fourth Dutch, with several other national derivations in their bloodlines.)

If you have a Fillmore line, you probably are related to the 13th President. His grandfather, Nathaniel Fillmore of Bennington, Vt., served in the Revolutionary War. The immigrant Fillmore ancestor was John Fillmore of Ipswich, Mass., a mariner.

Another President you are likely to discover in your family tree, particularly if your surname or an ancestor’s is Taft, is William Howard Taft, our 27th President. Taft’s pedigree charts are almost complete back to his 32 great-great-great-grandparents.

The ancestral charts of all 39 Presidents were compiled by Roberts from work done by himself and other genealogical scholars and appear in the second edition of “Burke’s Presidential Families of the United States of America,” published by Burke’s Peerage Limited of London. The American Genealogist, a notable quarterly edited by Ruth Wilder Sherman and David L. Green, also has published genealogical material pertaining to presidential lines.

Hannah Milhous gave her son, Richard Nixon, her maiden name and Quaker ancestry. Nixon’s chart extends back in all lines six generations with all but one of his 32 third-great-grandparents identified. Some surnames from his family tree--all 18th-Century ancestors--are Seeds, Scothorn, Trimmer, McElwain, Wadsworth, Wiley, Lytle and McComas. Other family names that may easily connect you to the former President are: Malmsbury, Cattell, Burdg, Hussey, Mendenhall, Vickers and Baldwin. He also has Smith, Matthews, Griffith, Armstrong, Hemingway, Brown, Moore and Clemson lines.

A Narrow Victory

Rutherford Birchard Hayes, the 19th President, was born in Ohio in 1822. In 1877 he became President by winning the electoral vote by a margin of 185 to 184. Hayes’ heritage has been traced for many generations except for his Birchard family. His mother was Sophia Birchard, a daughter of Roger Birchard, whose aliases were Roger Cornwall and Roger Jacob. It is believed that the family name was Cornwall rather than Birchard.

“Ten Presidents may be considered Southern for genealogical research purposes,” Roberts said. They are: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. Truman, L.B.J. and Carter all descend from what Roberts labels “modern Southern pioneer” ancestry.

Roberts has discovered in his research there are 18 couples or widows who are each ancestral to at least three American Presidents. Also, he said, “Omitting the common Adams and Harrison ancestors, approximately 100 immigrant or 17th-Century couples (all residents of New England, New York or Virginia--or, in a few cases, their English parents or grandparents), are ancestors of two or more Presidents.

“Only two such couples, to my knowledge, however, are ancestors of four Presidents,” Roberts said.

Roberts has just completed research for his latest work, “Presidential Pedigrees,” which is scheduled for publication later this year. It treats the fully known ancestries for 10 generations of all Presidents to date. It also charts proved or highly probable presidential royal descents, kinships between Presidents, as well as kinship between Presidents and a few 20th-Century royal figures with some American ancestry, plus kinships between Presidents and some 250 other notable Americans.