{"id":23809,"date":"2012-06-17T15:47:52","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T15:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=23809"},"modified":"2017-01-26T00:27:10","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T00:27:10","slug":"meet-your-cousin-the-first-lady-a-family-story-long-hidden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=23809","title":{"rendered":"Meet Your Cousin, the First Lady: A Family Story, Long Hidden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet Your Cousin, the First Lady: A Family Story, Long Hidden<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2012-06-16<\/p>\n

Rachel L. Swarns<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

This article is adapted from \u201cAmerican Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama<\/a>\u201d by Rachel L. Swarns, to be published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, on Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n

REX, Ga. \u2014 Joan Tribble held tightly to her cane as she ventured into the overgrown cemetery where her people were buried. There lay the pioneers who once populated north Georgia\u2019s rugged frontier, where striving white men planted corn and cotton, fought for the Confederacy and owned slaves.<\/p>\n

The settlers interred here were mostly forgotten over the decades as their progeny scattered across the South, embracing unassuming lives. But one line of her family took another path, heading north on a tumultuous, winding journey that ultimately led to the White House.<\/p>\n

The white men and women buried here are the forebears of Mrs. Tribble, a retired bookkeeper who delights in her two grandchildren and her Sunday church mornings. They are also ancestors of Michelle Obama<\/a>, the first lady<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The discovery of this unexpected family tie between the nation\u2019s most prominent black woman and a white, silver-haired grandmother from the Atlanta suburbs underscores the entangled histories and racial intermingling that continue to bind countless American families more than 140 years after the Civil War<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The link was established through more than two years of research into Mrs. Obama\u2019s roots, which included DNA tests of white and black relatives. Like many African-Americans, Mrs. Obama was aware that she had white ancestry, but knew little more.<\/p>\n

Now, for the first time, the white forebears who have remained hidden in the first lady\u2019s family tree can be identified. And her blood ties are not only to the dead. She has an entire constellation of white distant cousins who live in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Texas and beyond, who in turn are only now learning of their kinship to her…<\/p>\n

…DNA Testing<\/strong><\/p>\n

The discovery comes as an increasing number of Americans, black and white, confront their own family histories, taking advantage of widespread access to DNA testing and online genealogical records. Jennifer L. Hochschild<\/a>, a professor of African and African-American studies at Harvard who has studied the impact of DNA testing on racial identity, said this was uncharted territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a whole new social arena,\u201d Professor Hochschild said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have an etiquette for this. We don\u2019t have social norms.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMore or less every white person knows that slave owners raped slaves,\u201d she continued. \u201cBut my great-grandfather? People don\u2019t know what they feel. They don\u2019t know what they\u2019re supposed to feel. I think it\u2019s really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.\u00a0 Watch the video here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet Your Cousin, the First Lady: A Family Story, Long Hidden The New York Times 2012-06-16 Rachel L. Swarns This article is adapted from \u201cAmerican Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama\u201d by Rachel L. Swarns, to be published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, on Tuesday. REX, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,459,8,6940,20,25],"tags":[98,97,2099,2640,2880,9343,2327],"class_list":["post-23809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","category-women","tag-jennifer-hochschild","tag-jennifer-l-hochschild","tag-michelle-obama","tag-new-york-times","tag-rachel-l-swarns","tag-rachel-swarns","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51298,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23809\/revisions\/51298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}