Political trivia question

[nancylebov]

Obama is the son of an immigrant.

How many other presidents (if any) were children of immigrants?

What about grandchildren of immigrants?

Afaik, no American presidents have forebears from southern Europe (the Romance language region). Coincidence or conspiracy?

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

If you go back far enough all of them are descended from immigrants.

First or second generation, not so much.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Afaik, no American presidents have forebears from southern Europe (the Romance language region). Coincidence or conspiracy?

Lingering bigotry, I suspect. Not only do folks from that region speak funny languages and eat a lot of garlic, until recently they were almost certain to be -- shock! gasp! -- Catholic.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

sort of like Kennedys? (without the garlic)

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Well, Irish is at least not dark-skinned, and most of them speak English.

In all seriousness, I can remember the almighty fuss that got made about JFK being Catholic (it was the first presidential election I was consciously aware of) -- people were seriously asserting that the White House would have a direct phone line to the Vatican, and other even more weird and baroque ideas.

[avram]

The Vatican? That ain't nothin'! JFK ordered a direct phone line to Moscow!

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

But a bit farther back, they were almost certain to be Protestants. Most of them French-speaking.

[crystalpyramid]

Yeah, and there's a latitudism thing among various European countries. Russia thinks it's better than Ukraine, Northern Italy thinks it's better than Southern Italy, etc. I'm not sure how well it generalizes, but I've definitely heard it advocated.

[madfilkentist]

Thomas Jefferson's mother was born in England.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Thomas Jefferson's mother was from England, though arrived in Virginia when young. I think that's it, at least that i could find easily.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Oh, and these ones were British subjects prior to the Revolution:

* George Washington
* John Adams
* Thomas Jefferson
* James Madison
* James Monroe
* John Quincy Adams
* Andrew Jackson
* William Henry Harrison

I was thinking similarly, but about non-Anglo names.

[ginamariewade.livejournal.com]

There have been very few presidents with names that were not Anglo-Saxon or from the British Isles.
Eisenhower, both Roosevelts, and Van Buren are all I can think of.

Genealogy & US presidents

[romsfuulynn.livejournal.com]

There's a ton of resources on Presidential genealogy

http://www.cyndislist.com/us-presidents.htm

and

http://genweb.jrac.com/genweb.php
are places to start.

But yes, mostly multigenerational. Somebody recent had a Scottish mother, but that is about it.

Re: I was thinking similarly, but about non-Anglo names.

[romsfuulynn.livejournal.com]

While Van Buren is a Dutch name, there have been Van Burens in the US since the 1600s. e.g. Sarah Hoogland (Hoagland) married a John Van Buren in the mid 1700s.

Re: I was thinking similarly, but about non-Anglo names.

[redbird]

The Roosevelts and Van Buren are of Dutch background, which goes a long way back in New York State. Not Anglo-Saxon, but very clearly white, Northern European, and Protestant. Nonetheless, many of FDR's detractors have alleged and/or believed that he was Jewish (they tend to be the sort of people who would hold that against a man).

[nwhyte]

Not quite the same thing, but Herbert Hoover's vice president, Charles Curtis, was the son of a Native American woman (she is described as "one-fourth Kaw, one-fourth Osage, one-fourth Pottawatomie and one-fourth French") and grew up with her parents on a Kaw reservation in Kansas.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Also, Andrew Jackson's parents were immigrants from Ireland.

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

Jobn Quincy Adams' wife, Louisa, was born in London, England.

[(Anonymous)]

Obama Sr was a foreigner, not an immigrant. He was just passing through.