Obama Watch

Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.

Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas. But an intriguing sliver of the Illinois senator’s family history has received almost no attention until now: It appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to genealogical research and US Census records.

The records were first noted in an ancestry report compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner, who works at the Library of Congress and researches genealogies in his spare time. The report, on Reitwiesner’s website, carries a disclaimer that it is a “first draft” — one likely to be examined more closely if Obama is nominated.

According to the research, one of Obama’s great-great-great-great-grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 Census in Nelson County, Ken. The same records show that one of Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves.

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An Obama spokesman did not dispute the information and said that the senator’s ancestors “are representative of America”.

‘‘While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War,” campaign spokesman Bill Burton said. ‘‘And it is a true measure of progress that the descendant of a slave owner would come to marry a student from Kenya and produce a son who would grow up to be a candidate for president of the United States.”

“The twist is very interesting,” said Ronald Walters, a political scientist who is director of the African-American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland. “It deepens his connection with the experience of slavery, even if it deepens it on a different side of the equation.”

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