Michelle Obama 'descended from white Irish immigrants'

Michelle Obama's ancestry has been traced back decisively for the first time to white Irish immigrants in the Deep South of the United States. 

By Jon Swaine, Washington

5:46PM BST 17 Jun 2012

The First Lady's great-great-great-grandmother, a slave called Melvinia, was made pregnant in 1859 at the age of about 15 by Charles Shields, one of her owners' sons, according to a comprehensive new book.

Shields, who was about 20 at the time, was a descendant of Andrew Shields, a protestant Irish immigrant who fought against the British in the American revolutionary war in the late 18th century.

Mrs Obama was not aware of the family tree uncovered by the book's author, Rachel Swarns, who also alerted a series of white cousins around the US to their genealogical link to the White House.

 Mrs Obama's bloodline was traced back to Melvinia in 2009 by Megan Smolenyak, a genealogist who has also traced Barack Obama's maternal ancestors back to Moneygall in Ireland.

Valued at $475, Melvinia was transported at the age of about eight from South Carolina to Mr Shields's 200-acre farm in Clayton County, Georgia, where she worked as one of three slaves.
Henry Wells Shields had grown up 190 miles to the north-east, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where his grandfather Andrew apparently settled after migrating from Ireland in the 18th century.

Melvinia eventually had four children, and after being freed following the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, continued to work as a farm laborer on land belonging to Charles Shields.

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