Community | October 09, 2009 | 39 comments

Michelle Obama may have white slave-owner ancestor

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/09/michelle-obama-white-slave-owner

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Geneologist traces first lady's family back to unknown white patriarch, who have fathered child with black slave girl.

Michelle Obama had a great-great-great grandfather who was white and may have been the master of a black slave known as Melvinia, living in South Carolina.

The discovery of the first lady's slave ancestor on her mother's side rounds off a picture of her family tree that until now has remained elusive in crucial parts. During last year's presidential election, the Obamas made something of the slave history in her past, but the full details were never known.

Now an expert in genealogy, Megan Smolenyak, has followed Obama's family tree back five generations on both her maternal and paternal branches, with some interesting findings. The most eye-catching is the existence of Melvinia Shields, a slave girl owned by a David Paterson in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Melvinia, who was Obama's great-great-great grandmother, was passed on as property to Paterson's daughter and son-in-law – Christianne and Henry Shields – when he died in 1852. About seven years later, when she was still a teenager, she gave birth to a boy, Dolphus T Shields.

Smolenyak specialises in tracing family connections and last year followed Barack Obama's roots back to Ireland, revealing he is a distant cousin of the actor Brad Pitt. She tracked down a reference to Dolphus and his siblings in the 1870 US census.

That census is seen as a crucial document in the history of race in America as it was the first post-civil war count in which former slaves, who previously had gone unnamed as they were classed as property, were listed.

Dolphus was recorded in the census as "mulatto" – denoting one white and one black parent. The identity of the father is not known, though the fact that his surname was Shields suggests he may have been a member of the family that owned Melvinia.

"This is a very universal story," Smolenyak said. "It's a story of the spread of slavery through the south and the Great Migration of African-Americans to the north. The fact that there is mixed heritage involved will not be a great surprise to many as it was so common between masters and slaves."
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