July 31, 2008
May 27th was Wild Bill Hickok’s day – I wrote about how easy it is to find newspaper articles about him in GenealogyBank.
Wild Bill Hickok is in the news again – when Barack Obama mentioned his family tradition that he was a distant cousin to Wild Bill – James Butler Hickok (1837-1876).
(Photo: Texas Observer Blog 27 Feb 2007)
Don’t you love it when politicians talk about their genealogy!
The New England Historic Genealogical Society does and issued a statement yesterday verifying Obama’s family tradition:
Obama and Hickok are sixth cousins, six-times removed. Their common ancestor is Thomas Blossom, who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1629 from Leiden, Holland. Obama’s 4th great-grandfather, Jacob Dunham, was 6th cousins with Wild Bill. Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann, is also a Dunham.
“The ancestry of Wild Bill Hickok was published by NEHGS some years back, which showed he descended from the Blossom family of Cape Cod, an early family written up in one of our scholarly publications,” said Child. He added, “Since we had also recently done the ancestry of Senator Obama, finding this connection was a little easier.”
Wild Bill is related to Obama through his mother Polly Butler.
Great! Thanks for posting this!
Anothe Barack Obama cousin story from 2007 at NPR news:
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=15401094&m=15401057