WHO KNEW BARACK WOULD HAVE IRISH BRANCHES ON HIS FAMILY TREE?
MAY THE ROAD RISE TO MEET YA BARACK, AND MAY THE WIND ALWAYS BE AT YOUR BACK!
Best, Stephen HOLLISTER Houk
PROVO, UTAH – May 3, 2007 — Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online resource for family history, is now able to confirm that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s Irish ancestors originated in Moneygall and neighboring Shinrone in County Offaly, Ireland.
Ancestry.com revealed that Sen. Obama has Irish branches in his family tree. Following the news and in response to several inquiries, Ancestry.com continued its search of Obama’s Irish ancestors. Baptism and probate records linking the family line back to Moneygall have been unearthed with the assistance of Canon Stephen Neill in the Templeharry Rectory records, which until recently were stored in a parishioner’s home. “This research will once and for all put to rest any perceptions that Barack Obama is a first generation American, said Megan Smolenyak, Chief Family Historian for Ancestry.com. “Like most of us he has an interesting mix of ancestry, including some impressively early all-American roots.”
Researchers initially thought that Obama’s great-grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, who sailed from Ireland to New York in 1850 at 19-years-old, was the only member of the family to emigrate. However, records reveal that other Kearney family members had in fact been in America since the 1790s.