Jump to content

Family of Barack Obama

Page semi-protected
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Kezia Obama)

The Obama family
The Obama family on Easter Sunday, 2015
From left to right: Malia, Michelle, Barack, and Sasha
Current regionUnited States (Chicago / Washington, D.C.)
Place of originKenya
Hawaii
Indonesia
Chicago
Members
Connected familiesRobinson, Dunham, Soetoro, Ng

The family of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, is a prominent American family active in law, education, activism and politics. Obama's immediate family circle was the first family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, and are the first such family of African-American descent.[1] His immediate family includes his wife Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.

Obama's wider ancestry is made up of people of Kenyan (Luo), African-American, and Old Stock American (including originally English, Scots-Irish, Welsh, German, and Swiss) ancestry.[2][3][4][5][6]

Immediate family

Michelle Obama

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American lawyer, university administrator, and writer who served as the First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017.[7] She is Barack Obama's wife, and was the first African-American first lady. Raised on the South Side of Chicago,[8] Michelle Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School,[9] and spent her early legal career working at the law firm Sidley Austin, where she met her husband.[10] She subsequently worked as the associate dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago[11] and the vice president for Community and External Affairs of the University of Chicago Medical Center.[12] Barack and Michelle married in 1992.[13]

Michelle campaigned for her husband's presidential bid throughout 2007 and 2008, delivering a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.[14] She returned to speak at the 2012 Democratic National Convention,[15] and again during the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where she delivered a speech in support of the Democratic presidential nominee, and fellow first lady, Hillary Clinton.[16]

As first lady, Michelle Obama sought to become a role model for women, an advocate for poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity and healthy eating, and became a fashion icon.[17][18]

Malia Obama and Sasha Obama

Barack and Michelle Obama have two daughters: Malia Ann (/məˈlə/), born July 4, 1998,[19][20] and Natasha Marian (known as Sasha /ˈsɑːʃə/), born June 10, 2001.[21] They were both delivered at University of Chicago Medical Center by their parents' friend and physician Anita Blanchard.[22] Sasha was the youngest child to reside in the White House since John F. Kennedy Jr. arrived as an infant in 1961.[23] In 2014, Malia and Sasha were named two of "The 25 Most Influential Teens of 2014" by Time magazine.[24]

From left to right: Malia, Michelle, and Sasha on stage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver

Before his inauguration, President Obama published an open letter to his daughters in Parade magazine, describing what he wants for them and every child in America: "to grow up in a world with no limits on your dreams and no achievements beyond your reach, and to grow into compassionate, committed women who will help build that world".[25]

While living in Chicago, the Obamas kept busy schedules, as the Associated Press reported: "soccer, dance and drama for Malia, gymnastics and tap for Sasha, piano and tennis for both".[26][27] In July 2008, the family gave an interview to the television series Access Hollywood. Obama later said they regretted allowing the children to be included.[28] Malia and Sasha both graduated from the private Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., the same school that Chelsea Clinton, Tricia Nixon Cox, Archibald Roosevelt and the grandchildren of Joe Biden (when he was Vice President) attended.[29] The Obama girls began classes there on January 5, 2009;[30] Malia graduated in 2016. Before the family moved to Washington in 2009, both girls attended the private University of Chicago Laboratory School.[31]

In his victory speech on the night of his election, President Obama repeated his promise to Sasha and Malia to get a puppy to take with them to the White House.[32] The selection was slow because Malia is allergic to animal dander;[33] the president subsequently said that the choice had been narrowed down to either a labradoodle or a Portuguese Water Dog, and that they hoped to find a shelter animal.[34] On April 12, 2009, it was reported that the Obamas had adopted a six-month-old Portuguese Water Dog given to them as a gift by Senator Ted Kennedy;[35] Malia and Sasha named the dog Bo.[35] The White House referred to Bo as the First Dog.[36] In 2013, the family adopted a second Portuguese Water Dog named Sunny.[37]

As a high school student, Malia Obama spent a portion of the summer in 2014 and 2015 working in television studios in New York and Los Angeles.[38] She spent the summer of 2016 working as an intern in the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain.[39]

During the week June 26, 2016, to July 3, 2016, Michelle, Sasha, Malia, and Michelle's mother Marian Robinson went to Liberia to promote the Let Girls Learn Peace initiative, for which the United States has provided $27 million in aid.[40] They met with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former president of Liberia and the first elected female head of state in Africa.[40] Then they went to Morocco, where they had a panel with Freida Pinto and Meryl Streep moderated by CNN's Isha Sesay in Marrakesh and delivered a substantive amount of money to aid 62 million girls lacking access to formal education. They proceeded to Spain where Michelle delivered a message about the initiative.[40]

In August 2016, Sasha began working at Nancy's, a seafood restaurant in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.[41][42] In the fall of 2016, Malia went on an 83-day trip to Bolivia and Peru.[43] In February 2017, Malia started an internship for Harvey Weinstein at The Weinstein Company film studio in New York City.[44] In August 2017, Malia started attending Harvard University.[45] Sasha graduated from Sidwell Friends in 2019 and began attending the University of Michigan in the fall.[46][47] Sasha transferred to the University of Southern California and graduated in 2023.[48]

Malia graduated from Harvard in 2021 and began working as a writer on the Amazon Prime Video television series Swarm.[49] In spring 2023, Donald Glover confirmed that Malia was working on a short film for his production company;[50] The Heart, starring Tunde Adebimpe, was announced as part of the Short Cuts program at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.[51] Written and directed by "Malia Ann" (her credited name), the film screened at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.[52]

Marian Robinson

Marian Robinson, Michelle Obama's mother, resided in the White House during the Obama presidency.

Maternal relations

Barack Obama was raised by his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and maternal grandparents Madelyn and Stanley Dunham.[53][54] He often referred to his family during his candidacy and two terms as president.[55][56][57]

Obama's maternal heritage consists mostly of English ancestry, with smaller amounts of German, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, and Swiss ancestry.[4] Research by a genealogy team at Ancestry.com, published in 2012, stated that Obama is likely descended from the African slave John Punch through his mother's Bunch line, with generations of African Americans who gradually "married white" and became landowners in colonial Virginia. The Bunches later moved to Tennessee; in 1834 a daughter moved to Kansas, where Obama's mother was born four generations later.[58][59]

Ann Dunham (1942–1995)

Obama's mother was born Stanley Ann Dunham. She became an anthropologist, specializing in economic anthropology and rural development. She earned her PhD degree from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and worked with the United States Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation, and Women's World Banking, to promote the use of microcredit in order to combat global poverty.[53][60] The Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowment in the Anthropology Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the Ann Dunham Soetoro Graduate Fellowships at the East–West Center (EWC) in Honolulu, Hawaii, are named in her honor.[61] Obama has said that his mother was the dominant figure of his formative years. "The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics."[62]

Stanley Armour Dunham (1918–1992)

Stanley Armour Dunham is the maternal grandfather of Barack Obama. He served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II, enlisting just after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. He and his wife Madelyn Dunham raised Obama in Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Obama, Stanley is related to six US presidents: James Madison, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.[63][64] He died in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is buried at the Punchbowl National Cemetery.

Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham (1922–2008)

Madelyn Dunham (née Madelyn Lee Payne) was Obama's maternal grandmother who worked in banking and became vice president of a bank in Hawaii. Obama grew up with her and remembered that when he was a child, his grandmother "read me the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and told me about the men and women who marched for equality because they believed those words put to paper two centuries ago should mean something."[25]

Charles Thomas Payne (1925–2014)

Barack Obama embraces his great-uncle Charles Payne, June 6, 2009.

Charles Thomas Payne is Madelyn Dunham's younger brother and Obama's great-uncle. He was born in 1925. Payne served during World War II in the U.S. Army 89th Infantry Division.[65] Obama has often described Payne's role in liberating the Ohrdruf forced labor camp.[66] There was brief media attention when Obama mistakenly identified the camp as Auschwitz during the campaign.[67] In 2009, Payne spoke about his war experience:

Ohrdruf was in that string of towns going across, south of Gotha and Erfurt. Our division was the first one in there. When we arrived there were no German soldiers anywhere around that I knew about. There was no fighting against the Germans, no camp guards. The whole area was overrun by people from the camp dressed in the most pitiful rags, and most of them were in a bad state of starvation.[68]

Payne appeared in the visitor's gallery at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, when his great-nephew was nominated for President.[69] He was the assistant director of the University of Chicago's Library.[66]

Ralph Dunham (1916–2012)

Ralph Dunham was Stanley Dunham's older brother and Obama's great-uncle, who served in the U.S. Army as an assignment and personnel officer during World War II. He landed at Normandy's Omaha Easy Red Beach on D-Day plus four, and moved with troops in the fighting through France, Italy and Germany.[70][71]

Eleanor Belle Dunham Berkebile (1932–2003)

Eleanor Dunham, Obama's great-aunt, was the younger sister of Stanley Armour Dunham and Ralph Dunham. Married to Ralph Lee Berkebile. She was the youngest daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham Sr. and his second wife, Martha Mae Stonehouse. She retired from civil service as an executive secretary.[citation needed]

Margaret Arlene Payne (1927–2014)

Margaret Arlene Payne, Obama's great-aunt, was the younger sister of Madelyn Dunham and Charles Payne. She was a professor of nutrition who taught at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1980–1990). She wrote numerous research articles and two books.[72][73]

Leona McCurry (1897–1968)

Obama's family said that his maternal great-grandmother, Leona McCurry, was part Native American.[74] She reportedly held that as a "source of considerable shame" and "blanched whenever someone mentioned the subject and hoped to carry the secret to her grave".[74] But her daughter Madelyn Dunham (Obama's maternal grandmother) "would turn her head in profile to show off her beaked nose, which along with a pair of jet-black eyes, was offered as proof of Cherokee blood".[75] To date, no concrete evidence has surfaced of Cherokee heritage in the McCurry line.

Ruth Lucille Armour (1900–1926)

Obama's family said that his paternal great-grandmother, Ruth Dunham, died November 26, 1926, from ptomaine poisoning. She resided in Topeka, Kansas.

Fulmoth Kearney (c. 1829–1878)

A maternal 3rd great-grandfather of Barack Obama, nicknamed "Fully".[76] Born c. 1829 in Moneygall, King's County, Ireland, he emigrated to Ohio via New York in 1850, making him the most recent immigrant on the maternal side of Barack Obama's family tree. Fulmoth married Charlotte Holloway and raised a family which included three daughters (including Mary Ann). She and two of her sisters married three Dunham brothers. Kearney and his wife are buried in Fairview Cemetery in Labette County, Kansas. Descendants placed a headstone there in 2014.[77] Around the same time, a photo of him was discovered.[78][76] Barack Obama visited Moneygall in 2011.[79] In 2014, "Barack Obama Plaza", a service station and visitor center, was opened in Moneygall.[80] In 2015, a photograph of Kearney was discovered and made publicly available. In 2018, statues of Michelle and Barack were erected in Moneygall.[81]

Lolo Soetoro (1936–1987)

Lolo Soetoro, Javanese given name: Martodihardjo,[82][83] was the second husband of Ann Dunham (married on March 15, 1965)[84] and stepfather to Barack Obama. He is Maya Soetoro-Ng's father. After his divorce from Dunham, Soetoro married Erna Kustina. They had two children, Yusuf Aji Soetoro (b. 1981) and Rahayu Nurmaida Soetoro (b. 1984).[83]

Maya Soetoro-Ng (b. 1970)

Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's half-sister, was born in Jakarta, Indonesia.[85] She has a half-brother and half-sister, Yusuf and Aya Soetoro, from her father's second marriage. She is married to Canadian-American Konrad Ng, with whom she has two daughters, Suhaila and Savita. Maya Soetoro-Ng is a teacher in Hawaii.[86]

Konrad Ng (b. 1974)

Konrad Ng is Barack Obama's brother-in-law. He is of Overseas Chinese descent,[87] and his parents are from Kudat and Sandakan, two small towns in Sabah, Malaysia. Ng and his younger brother, Perry, were born and raised in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.[88] Perry Ng works for the University of Ottawa.[87] He married Maya Soetoro-Ng at the end of 2003 in Hawaii.[89] They have two daughters, Suhaila[90][91][92] and Savita.[86] Konrad Ng is a U.S. citizen.[93] He was an assistant professor at the University of Hawaiʻi's Academy of Creative Media.[94] From 2011–2015, he was the Director of the Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Program. Since 2016, he has been the Executive Director of The Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design in Honolulu. He studied philosophy at McGill University and cultural studies at the University of Victoria before getting his PhD degree from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.[95][96]

Ng studies "how minority and diaspora communities use cinema and digital media to engage in artistic and cultural representation and preservation, and community mobilization".[97] From 2011 to 2016, he served as director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.[97][98][99]

Robert Wolfley (1835–1895)

Robert Wolfley, born in 1835, is one of Obama's maternal third great-grandfathers. He served as a private in Company A, 145th Ohio Infantry during the American Civil War. He died July 17, 1895, and is buried in the Olathe Memorial Cemetery in Olathe, Kansas.[100][101]

John Punch

According to Ancestry.com's research in 2012, using a combination of historical documents and yDNA analysis, genealogists found that John Punch, the first documented African slave in the Colony of Virginia, has been documented as likely an eleventh great-grandfather of Obama through his mother, Ann Dunham, and her Bunch ancestors.[102][58] With intermarriage, there were eventually both white and African-American lines of descent from Punch; some Bunch descendants were classified as white by the early 18th century. Other Bunch descendants were considered free people of color. Ralph Bunche, American delegate to the United Nations, is thought by historian Paul Heinegg to have likely been an African-American descendant of the Bunch family via South Carolina and Detroit, Michigan.[58][103]

Jonathan Singletary Dunham (1640–1724)

Jonathan Singletary Dunham, born in 1640 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was one of Obama's maternal eighth great-grandfathers and is his earliest ancestor known to be born in North America.[4][104][105]

Paternal relations

Obama's family in Kenya are members of the Jok'Obama, a clan belonging to the Luo people, the nation's second-largest ethnic group. Linguistically, Luo is one of the Nilotic languages. The Obama family is concentrated in the western Kenyan province of Nyanza.

Front row (left to right): Auma Obama (Barack's half-sister), Kezia Obama (Barack's stepmother), Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama (third wife of Barack's paternal grandfather), Zeituni Onyango (Barack's aunt)
Back row (left to right): Sayid Obama (Barack's uncle), Barack Obama, Abongo [Roy] Obama (Barack's half-brother), unidentified woman, Bernard Obama (Barack's half-brother), Abo Obama (Barack's half-brother)

Hussein Onyango Obama (c. 1895–1979)

Paternal grandfather to Barack Obama, he was born Onyango Obama.[106] (One source gives 1870–1975 as his dates of birth and death, possibly based on his tombstone in his home village.)[107] Barack Obama relates finding in 1988 a British document, based on a 1928 ordinance, recording his grandfather as 35 years old. The date of the document was estimated to be about 1930, which would mean that his grandfather had been born c. 1895.[108]) The Luo are given names related to the circumstances of their birth, and Onyango means "born in the early morning".

Onyango was the fifth son of his mother, Nyaoke, who was the first of the five wives of his father, Obama.[109] Barack Obama relates how his step-grandmother Granny Sarah (Sarah Onyango Obama) describes his grandfather: "Even from the time that he was a boy, your grandfather Onyango was strange. It is said of him that he had ants up his anus, because he could not sit still."[110] As a young man, Onyango learned to speak, read and write in English, the language of British colonial administration in Kenya.[111]

Onyango worked as a mission cook and as a local herbalist.[110] He joined the King's African Rifles during World War I.[112]

In 1949, Onyango spent at least six months in Kamiti Prison. He was tried in a magistrates' court either on charges of sedition or being a member of a banned organization. Records do not survive; all such documentation was routinely destroyed after six years by the colonial administration. Onyango was then subject to torture due to suspicions that he was an associate of the Mau Mau rebels.[113] In his memoir, Obama recounted family descriptions of his grandfather's shocking physical state when released from prison:

"When he returned to Alego he was very thin and dirty. He had difficulty walking, and his head was full of lice." For some time, he was too traumatized to speak about his experiences. His wife told his grandson Obama: "From that day on, I saw that he was now an old man."[111]

Onyango was permanently scarred, suffering pain and requiring assistance in moving until his death. Although previously he had worked closely with the British, Onyango became bitterly anglophobic after his experiences in Kamiti Prison.[114]

According to his third wife, Sarah, Onyango had converted from tribal religion to Roman Catholicism early in life. When Seventh-day Adventist missionaries visited the Kendu Bay area many people were baptized into the church, including Onyango.[115] When he later converted to Islam, he took the first name Hussein. She said that he passed on the name of Hussein to his children, but not the religion.[116] Onyango is sometimes referred to as Mzee Hussein Onyango Obama. The word mzee (meaning "elder") is a Kenyan honorific. To this day the Obama family in Kenya is divided between Seventh-day Adventists and Muslims.

Habiba Akumu Obama (c. 1918–2006)

Also known as Akumu Nyanjoga and Sje.[117][118][119][120] She was Barack Obama's paternal grandmother, and the second wife of Hussein Onyango Obama. She had three children with Onyango: daughters Sarah and Auma, and son Barack (Barack Obama's father).[121] Her father was named Njango or Njoga,[122] and she was born and raised in the Western Kenyan village of Karabondi.[120][123]

In his memoir Dreams from My Father, Obama wrote that Akumu was miserable in her marriage and abandoned Onyango Obama and her children with him. She subsequently married again and moved to Tanganyika, now Tanzania. Her name Akumu means "mysterious birth". Her mother conceived her after having given birth to another child and before resuming her menses. Akumu took the name Habiba upon her conversion to Islam in her second marriage, to Salmin Orinda, a Muslim from Wagwe, near Homa Hills, South Nyanza.[122] A photograph of her holding her son, Barack Sr., on her lap is on the cover of her grandson's memoir. (See image at right margin.)[124]

Sarah Obama (b. 1933)

Aunt of U.S. President Obama and elder sister of his father, daughter of Hussein Onyango and his second wife, Habiba Akumu Obama.[125] (She should not be confused with her stepmother Sarah Onyango Obama, also often called just Sarah Obama, the third wife of Onyango.)

Barack Obama Sr. (1934–1982)

Barack Obama Sr., father of Barack Obama, was the son of Onyango and his second wife Habiba Akumu Obama. Educated in the US at the University of Hawaiʻi and Harvard University, he returned to Kenya, where he became an economist with the government. He served in the ministries of transportation and finance. Barack Obama Sr. married three times, and he fathered a daughter and at least five sons including the junior Barack.[126][unreliable source?]

Hawa Auma Hussein

Aunt of U.S. President Obama and younger sister of his father, born to Hussein Onyango and second wife Habiba Akumu Obama.[125]

Sarah Onyango Obama (1922–2021)

Sarah Onyango Obama was the third wife of Obama's paternal grandfather.[127] She was known for short as Sarah Obama; she was sometimes referred to as Sarah Ogwel, Sarah Hussein Obama, or Sarah Anyango Obama.[128] She lived in Nyang'oma Kogelo village, 30 miles west of western Kenya's main town, Kisumu, on the edge of Lake Victoria.[129][130] (She should not be confused with her stepdaughter of the same name, Sarah Obama, a daughter of Onyango's second wife Akumu.)[131]

Although she was not a blood relation, Barack Obama calls her "Granny Sarah".[128][132] Sarah, who spoke Luo and only a few words of English, communicated with President Obama through an interpreter.

On July 4, 2008, Sarah Obama attended the United States Independence Day celebrations in Nairobi, hosted by Michael Ranneberger, the US ambassador in Kenya.[133]

During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, she protested attempts to portray Obama as a foreigner to the United States or as a Muslim, saying that while Obama's grandfather had been a Muslim, "In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents."[116] Sarah Obama was "a strong believer of the Islamic faith", in her words.[134]

In November 2014, Sarah Obama received an award from the United Nations for the work of an education foundation that she headed, as a part of Women's Entrepreneurship Day.[135]

Kezia Obama (1940–2021)

Kezia "Grace" Obama (also known as Kezia Aoko)[136] was born c. 1940.[137][138] She was Barack Obama Sr.'s first wife; she married him in Kenya in 1954 before he studied abroad in the United States. They had at least two children together: Abongo [Roy] and Auma; and also claimed Bernard and Abo Obama as sons by Barack Sr.

She lived in Bracknell, Berkshire, England, until her death in 2021.[139] On March 22, 2009, Kezia Obama made a guest appearance on the British television show Chris Moyles' Quiz Night.[140] Her sister, Jane, is the 'Auntie Jane' mentioned at the very start of Dreams from My Father; she telephoned Obama in the US in 1982 to tell him that his father had been killed in a car accident in Kenya.[141] She died on April 13, 2021.[142]

Malik Obama

Barack Obama's half-brother, also known as Abongo or Roy, was born c. March 1958, the son of Barack Obama Sr. and his first wife, Kezia.[143] Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya,[144] he earned a degree in accounting from the University of Nairobi.[145] The half brothers met for the first time in 1985[144] when Barack flew from Chicago to Washington, D.C., to visit him.[146] They were best men at each other's weddings.[144] The American Obama brought his wife Michelle to Kenya three years later, and they met with Malik again while meeting many other relatives for the first time.[147]

Malik lives in the Obamas' ancestral home, Nyang'oma Kogelo, a village of several hundred people, preferring its slow pace to that of the city.[144] He runs a small electronics shop a half-hour's drive outside of town.[144] A frequent visitor to the US,[147] and a consultant in Washington, D.C., for several months each year,[144] Malik has dual citizenship in Kenya and the United States.[148]

During his brother's 2008 presidential campaign, Malik Obama was a spokesman for the extended Obama family in Kenya. He dealt with safety and privacy concerns arising from the increased attention from the press.[149]

Malik ran for governor of the Kenyan county of Siaya in 2013.[150] His campaign slogan was "Obama here, Obama there" in reference to his half-brother who was serving his second term as the president of the United States. Malik garnered a meager 2,792 votes, about 140,000 votes behind the eventual winner.[151] Prior to the 2016 United States presidential election, he stated that he supported Donald Trump, the candidate for the Republican Party.[152] He attended the third presidential debate as one of Trump's guests.[153]

Auma Obama

Auma Obama

Barack Obama's half-sister, born c. 1960, to Kezia, his father's first wife.[154] As of July 2008, she was a development worker in Kenya.[155] She attended The Kenya High School and subsequently studied German at the University of Heidelberg from 1981 to 1987. After her graduation at Heidelberg, she went on for graduate studies at the University of Bayreuth, earning a PhD degree in 1996. Her dissertation was on the conception of labor in Germany and its literary reflections.[155]

Auma Obama has lived in London. In 1996 she married an Englishman, Ian Manners, although they have since divorced.[156] They have a daughter named Akinyi (b. 1997).[155][157] In 2011, Auma Obama was interviewed for Turk Pipkin's documentary Building Hope and was the subject of a German documentary film The Education of Auma Obama.

In 2017 Auma Obama was honoured with the fourth International TÜV Rheinland Global Compact Award in Cologne.[158] At the award ceremony, she received the bronze sculpture 'Der Griff nach den Sternen' (Reaching for the stars), solely made for the award, by artist Hannes Helmke.[159]

Abo and Bernard Obama

Said to be Barack Obama's half-brothers, Abo, also known as Samson Obama,[160] was born in 1968 and Bernard was born two years later in 1970 to Kezia Obama. In Dreams from My Father, Obama wrote that his Obama relatives doubt that Abo and Bernard are the biological sons of Barack Obama Sr.

Ruth (Baker) Ndesandjo

Born Ruth Beatrice Baker in the United States c. 1937, the daughter of Maurice Joseph Baker and Ida Baker of Newton, Massachusetts, who are of Lithuanian-Jewish descent.[161] Ruth Baker was a 1954 graduate of Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachusetts, and a 1958 graduate of Simmons College in Boston with a degree in business.[161] She was a suburban elementary school teacher when she met and began dating Barack Sr. in Cambridge in June 1964, a month before his return to Kenya in August 1964.[161] She followed Obama Sr. back to Kenya five weeks later, and married him in Kenya in a civil ceremony on December 24, 1964.[161] She later became a private kindergarten director in Kenya.[162] She had two sons with Barack Obama Sr.: Mark and David. She and Barack Sr. separated in 1971 and divorced about 1973. Since she remarried when her sons were young, they took their stepfather's surname, Ndesandjo, as their own. Her third son, Joseph Ndesandjo, was born c. 1980 in her second marriage.

Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo

Barack Obama's half-brother, born c. 1965, son of Barack Obama Sr. and his third wife Ruth Baker.[163] Mark Ndesandjo runs an Internet company called WorldNexus that advises Chinese corporations how best to reach international customers.[164] Mark was educated in the US, graduating from Brown University; he studied physics at Stanford University, and received an MBA degree from Emory University.[165]

He has lived in Shenzhen, China, since 2002.[165] Through his mother, he is Jewish.[166] He is married to Liu Xuehua (also spelled Liu Zue Hua in some reports), a Chinese woman from Henan Province.[167][168] He is an accomplished pianist and has performed in concert.[169]

In 2009, Mark Ndesandjo published a semi-autobiographical novel, Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Novel of Love in the East.[170][171] He published a memoir in 2013, entitled, Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery.[172] In it, he accused their father Barack Sr. of abuse.[173]

David Ndesandjo (c. 1967c. 1987)

Barack Obama's half-brother (also known as David Opiyo Obama), son of Barack Obama Sr. and his third wife, Ruth Baker, an American. He died in a motorcycle accident several years after his father's death in a car accident.[174][175]

George Hussein Onyango Obama

Youngest half-brother of Barack Obama, born c. May 1982, son of Barack Obama Sr.[176] and Jael Otieno. (She has since moved to Atlanta, Georgia as a full-time resident.)[177][178] George was six months old when his father died in an automobile accident, after which he was raised in Nairobi by his mother and a French stepfather. His mother took him to South Korea for two years while she was working there.[177] Returning to Kenya, George Obama "slept rough for several years",[179] until his aunt gave him a six-by-eight foot corrugated metal shack in the Nairobi slum of Huruma Flats.[177]

As of August 2008, George Obama was studying to become a mechanic.[177] He received little attention until featured in an article in the Italian-language edition of Vanity Fair in August 2008 during the US presidential campaign. This portrayed him as living in poverty, shame, and obscurity.[180] The article quoted George Obama as saying that he lived "on less than a dollar a month" and said that he "does not mention his famous half-brother in conversation" out of shame at his own poverty.[181] In later interviews, George contradicted this account. In an interview with The Times, he "said that he was furious at subsequent reports that he had been abandoned by the Obama family and that he was filled with shame about living in a slum".[178]

He told The Times, "Life in Huruma is good." George Obama said that he expects no favors, that he was supported by relatives, and that reports he lived on a dollar a month were "all lies by people who don't want my brother to win".[178] He told The Telegraph that he was inspired by his half-brother.[177] According to Time, George "has repeatedly denied ... that he feels abandoned by Obama".[182] CNN quoted him as saying, "I was brought up well. I live well even now. The magazines, they have exaggerated everything – I think I kind of like it here. There are some challenges, but maybe it is just like where you come from, there are the same challenges."[180] George Obama and the British journalist Damien Lewis published George's story in a 2011 book called Homeland.[183][184] George also appeared in the 2012 film, 2016: Obama's America, an anti-Obama documentary.[185]

Omar Okech Obama

At times using a variation of the name of his father, Onyango Obama,[186][187] Omar Okech Obama is a half-uncle of Barack Obama.[188] Born on June 3, 1944, in Nyang'oma Kogelo, he is the eldest son of Onyango and his third wife, Sarah Obama. He moved to the United States in October 1963 when he was 17 years old as part of Kenya president Tom Mboya's Airlift Africa project, to send promising Kenyan students to the US for education, particularly undergraduate and graduate school.[186][189] Once he arrived in the country, his half-brother, Barack Obama Sr., found him a place at a boys' school then known as Browne & Nichols, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[186] He later dropped out of school and changed his name to O. Onyango Obama.[186] He has operated a liquor store in Framingham, where he resided as of March 2011.[186][190] Barack Obama lived with Onyango in the 1980s while a student at Harvard Law School in Cambridge.[191]

Omar Okech Obama was subject to a deportation order in 1989.[192] After an unsuccessful appeal, he was given a new deportation order in 1992.[192][193] He was arrested on August 24, 2011, for driving under the influence, or DUI,[192] and was held in jail until September 9, 2011, on a federal immigration warrant.[187][194] The Boston Herald reported in August 2011 that Obama had had a valid Social Security card "for at least 19 years".[195] On November 30, 2012, the Board of Immigration Appeals remanded the immigration case to the Executive Office for Immigration Review for reconsideration of the original order of deportation, which was issued in 1986 and re-issued in 1992.[196]

An immigration judge ruled on January 30, 2013, that Onyango Obama would receive a deportation hearing.[189] Onyango's attorneys said that his defense at the December 3, 2013, deportation hearing would be a reliance on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, because Onyango had resided in the U.S. since before January 1, 1972, the cutoff date of the 1986 amnesty.[197] At the hearing, Immigration Judge Leonard I. Shapiro ruled that Onyango was eligible for permanent residence and would receive a green card.[198]

Zeituni Onyango (1952–2014)

Zeituni Onyango, half-aunt of Barack Obama,[199] was born May 29, 1952, in Kenya.[200] Onyango is referred to as "Aunti Zeituni" in Obama's memoir Dreams from My Father.[201] She entered the US in 2000 on a temporary visa with her son who was going to school; she applied in 2002 for political asylum due to unrest in Kenya and ethnic conflict. This was denied in 2004, but she remained in the country illegally. Her presence was leaked to the media during Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. She was granted asylum in 2010. She died on April 7, 2014, from complications caused by cancer and respiratory problems.[202]

Michelle Obama's extended family

Marian Robinson (second from right) makes an appearance with the rest of the immediate family of Barack Obama on the South Portico of the White House during festivities of the 2009 White House Easter Egg Roll

Barack Obama has called his wife Michelle Obama "the most quintessentially American woman I know".[5] Her family is of African-American heritage, descendants of Africans and Europeans of the colonial era and antebellum eras.[5] Michelle Obama's family history traces from colonists and slavery in the South to Reconstruction to the Great Migration to northern cities, in her family's case, Cleveland and Chicago. Each of her four grandparents was multiracial.[203] Some of Michelle's relatives still reside in South Carolina. Extended family from her mother's Shields ancestors also reside in Georgia and throughout the South.

Jim Robinson

Michelle's earliest known relative on her father's side is her great-great grandfather Jim Robinson, born in the 1850s, who was an American slave on the Friendfield Plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina in the Low Country, where African Americans developed as the Gullah people and culture. The family believes that after the Civil War, he worked as a Friendfield sharecropper for the rest of his life. He is said to have been buried there in an unmarked grave.[5]

Jim married twice, first to a woman named Louiser, with whom he had two sons, Gabriel and Fraser, Michelle Obama's great-grandfather. A daughter was born to the family, but her name has not been discovered, and she is believed to have died as a child. His second marriage to Rose Ella Cohen produced six more children. Fraser had an arm amputated as a result of a boyhood injury. He worked as a shoemaker, a newspaper salesman, and in a lumber mill.[5] Carrie Nelson, Gabriel Robinson's daughter, is the keeper of family lore and the oldest living Robinson at 80 years old in 2008.[5]

At least three of Michelle Obama's great-uncles served in the military of the United States. One aunt moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where she worked as a maid. She cooked Southern-style meals for Michelle and her brother Craig, when they were students at Princeton University.

Melvinia Shields (1844–1938)

The earliest known relative on her mother's side is her great-great-great-grandmother, Melvinia Shields (1844–1938), who was held as a slave on a farm in Clayton County, North Georgia. Her master was Henry Walls Shields, who had a 200-acre farm near Rex. He would have worked along with his slaves.[203] Melvinia became pregnant at about age 15 and had a biracial son, Dolphus T. Shields, born into slavery about 1860. Melvinia did not talk to relatives about his father.[204] Based on DNA and other evidence, in 2012 researchers said the father was likely 20-year-old Charles Marion Shields, son of Melvinia's master.[203] After the Civil War, Dolphus Shields moved to Birmingham, Alabama. Charles later became a teacher and married a white woman. Michelle Obama's extended family has said that people didn't talk about slavery time while they were growing up.[203] Michelle Obama's distant ancestry also includes Irish and other European roots.[205]

On June 26, 2012, a monument to Shields was erected in Rex, with an inscription summarizing her life and "a five-generation journey that began in oppression" resulting in her descendant becoming First Lady of the United States.[206] A year later, the monument was vandalized and knocked from its base, but was quickly replaced.[206]

Marian Lois Robinson (1937–2024)

Marian Lois Robinson (born Marian Lois Shields, July 30, 1937, died May 31, 2024), was descended from Dolphus Shields and his wife. She married Michelle's father, Fraser Robinson, on October 27, 1960.[207][208] Robinson was formerly a secretary at Spiegel catalog and a bank. While Michelle and Barack Obama were campaigning in 2008, Robinson tended the Obamas' young children. She continued to help care for them while living in the White House as part of the First Family;[209] she was the first live-in grandmother since Elivera M. Doud during the Eisenhower administration.[210] Some media outlets dubbed Robinson as the "First Granny".[210][211] Marian took Sasha and Malia to school daily.[212] The Obamas announced her death on May 31, 2024.

Fraser C. Robinson III (1935–1991)

Michelle Obama's father (August 1, 1935 — March 6, 1991), married Michelle's mother, Marian Shields, on October 27, 1960.[208][213] Robinson was a pump worker at the City of Chicago water plant.[5]

Craig Robinson

Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama's brother, was born in 1962. From 2008 until 2014, he served as head coach of men's basketball at Oregon State University.[214]

Fraser Robinson Jr. (1912–1996)

Michelle Obama's paternal grandfather was born on August 24, 1912, in Georgetown, South Carolina, and died on November 9, 1996, aged 84. He was a good student and orator but moved from South Carolina to Chicago during the Great Migration to find better work and living conditions than in the South, where Jim Crow had been imposed and blacks were disfranchised. He became a worker for the United States Postal Service. He married LaVaughn Johnson. When he retired, they moved back to South Carolina.[5]

LaVaughn Dolores Johnson (1915–2002)

Michelle Obama's paternal grandmother (February 6, 1915 – September 17, 2002) and married to Fraser Robinson Jr. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, to James Preston Johnson (1880–1920?) and Phoebe (1879–1920?).

Robbie Shields Terry (1908–1983)

Robbie Shields Terry (born Robbie Lee Shields; July 3, 1908 – June 1, 1983) was Michelle Obama's great-aunt: her mother's father's sister. In the 1940 census, she was listed as head of household,[215] with Marian Shields listed as niece.[216] Michelle Obama, in her memoir, Becoming, introduces Robbie and her husband, Terry, in the first chapter.[217] Her nuclear family moved into a small apartment on the second floor in their house while she was still a young child.[218] Robbie was Michelle's piano teacher[219] as well as nearest neighbor. When she died, Robbie, a widow, left the house to her mother, Marian, and father, Fraser Robinson, who moved downstairs.[220] Subsequently, Michelle moved into the second floor apartment while working at the law firm Sidley & Austin.[221] When Barack Obama settled in Chicago after graduating law school, he moved into this same apartment.[222]

Capers Funnye

Capers C. Funnye Jr. is Michelle Obama's first cousin once removed: his mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye (born Verdelle Robinson; August 22, 1930 – April 16, 2000), was a sister of Michelle Obama's paternal grandfather, Fraser Robinson Jr. He is 12 years older, and Funnye and Obama grew to know each other as adults in Chicago, where both were involved in community organizing, along with Barack Obama. He is one of America's most prominent African-American rabbis, known for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and African American Jews. He converted to Judaism after 1970, during years of activism when he regarded Christianity as having been imposed on slaves.[223]

Genealogical charts

Ancestries

Sources:
  • Swarns, Rachel L. (2012). American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-220465-3.
  • P. L. Firstbrook (2011). The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family. Arrow. ISBN 978-0-09-955828-6.

Family trees

Index

  • Key:
    • Underscored: Now or once a member of Barack Obama's household
    • Personal name bolded: Living
  • Note: Every link in this index is to entries in this article

By last name

By first name

See also

References

  1. ^ Haygood, Wil (December 12, 2016). "The Obamas came from a place we all came from". The Washington Post.
  2. ^ "Researchers: Obama has German roots". USA Today. June 4, 2009. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  3. ^ Megan Smolenyak (December 2008). The Quest for Obama's Irish Roots. ancestry.com.
  4. ^ a b c Reitwiesner, William Addams. "Ancestry of Barack Obama". Retrieved October 9, 2008.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Murray, Shailagh (October 2, 2008). "A Family Tree Rooted In American Soil: Michelle Obama Learns About Her Slave Ancestors, Herself and Her Country". The Washington Post. p. C01. Retrieved October 10, 2008.
  6. ^ Sheridan, Michael (February 5, 2007). "Secrets of Obama Family Unlocked". Muslim Observer. Archived from the original on October 29, 2008. Retrieved November 21, 2008.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  7. ^ "The Obamas". Obama Library. October 20, 2016. Retrieved September 8, 2018.
  8. ^ Johnson, Rebecca (September 2007). "The natural". Vogue. Archived from the original on January 16, 2009. Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  9. ^ Slevin, Peter (March 26, 2015). "Michelle Obama, Race and the Ivy League". Politico.
  10. ^ Mundy, Liza (October 5, 2008). "When Michelle Met Barack". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 25, 2008.
  11. ^ "Obama named first Associate Dean of Student Services". University of Chicago Chronicle. 15 (19). June 6, 1996. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  12. ^ "Michelle Obama appointed vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals" (Press release). University of Chicago Medical Center. May 9, 2005. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  13. ^ Fornek, Scott (October 3, 2007). "Michelle Obama: 'He Swept Me Off My Feet'". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on December 14, 2007. Retrieved December 2, 2007.
  14. ^ Suellentrop, Chris (August 25, 2008). "Michelle Obama's high note". The New York Times. Retrieved August 27, 2008.
  15. ^ "Michelle Obama, Ann Romney get positive ratings after conventions". CBS News. December 14, 2012.
  16. ^ Smith, David (July 26, 2016). "Michelle Obama's stirring speech brings Democratic convention to tears". The Guardian.
  17. ^ Donahue, Wendy. "Michelle Obama emerges as an American fashion icon". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved June 4, 2011.
  18. ^ Bellantoni, Christina (April 10, 2009). "Michelle Obama settling in as a role model". The Washington Times. Retrieved June 4, 2011.
  19. ^ First Lady Michelle Obama says Malia will be driving this summer, BlackAmericaWeb.com, Reach Media, Inc., May 21, 2014, Superville, D. Retrieved May 24, 2014.
  20. ^ McCormick, John (July 3, 2009). "Malia Obama's birthday: President's oldest daughter will turn 11 as thousands descend on White House lawn for 4th of July". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on August 17, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  21. ^ O'Neill, Xana (June 10, 2009). "Birthday Girl Sasha Obama Celebrates in London". NBC Washington. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  22. ^ Kantor, Jodi (December 13, 2008). "Obama's Friends Form Strategy to Stay Close". The New York Times. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
  23. ^ "Sasha Obama". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  24. ^ "Most Influential Teens 2014". Time. October 13, 2014.
  25. ^ a b Obama, Barack (January 13, 2009). "What I Want for You—And Every Child in America". Parade.
  26. ^ Sobieraj Westfall, Sandra (June 23, 2008). "Barack Obama Gives Daughter $1 Allowance a Week". People. Archived from the original on November 8, 2008. Retrieved November 21, 2008.
  27. ^ Lester, Will (July 23, 2008). "Obama daughters keep hectic schedules of their own". Associated Press. Archived from the original on September 1, 2008. Retrieved August 4, 2008.
  28. ^ Hiro, Anne. "Obama regrets letting 'Access Hollywood' interview daughters. Won't do it again. MSNBC's Dan Abrams gets the story behind the story. -Lynn Sweet". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on January 23, 2009. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  29. ^ Swarns, Rachel (November 21, 2008). "And the Winner Is ... Sidwell Friends". The New York Times. Retrieved November 21, 2008.
  30. ^ Tolin, Lisa (January 5, 2009). "Obama girls start school with photographers in tow". Associated Press. Archived from the original on January 22, 2009. Retrieved January 6, 2009.
  31. ^ Valerie Strauss, Education Secretary Duncan's children to go to Chicago private school he attended, The Washington Post (July 9, 2015).
  32. ^ Ahmed, Saeed (November 5, 2008). "Move over Barney, new dog moving into White House". CNN. Retrieved November 21, 2008.
  33. ^ "Obama: Getting a dog isn't easy". Associated Press. November 7, 2008. Retrieved November 21, 2008.
  34. ^ Janice Lloyd (January 12, 2009). "Obamas down to Labradoodle or Portuguese water dog". USA Today. Retrieved January 28, 2009.
  35. ^ a b Roig-Franzia, Manuel (April 12, 2009). "First Puppy Makes a Big Splash". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  36. ^ Jesse Lee (April 12, 2009). "Meet Bo, the First Dog". whitehouse.gov. Retrieved June 1, 2012 – via National Archives.
  37. ^ "Barack Obama: Sunny the dog 'fills void at White House'". The Daily Telegraph. London. August 23, 2013. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved December 27, 2013.
  38. ^ Julie Hirschfeld Davis; Nicholas Fandos (May 1, 2016). "Malia Obama to Attend Harvard, but Not Until 2017". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
  39. ^ "Malia Obama to spend summer as an intern at U.S. Embassy in Spain". Fox News Latino. June 28, 2016. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  40. ^ a b c "Obama travel for let girls learn initiative". Yahoo! Politics. June 30, 2016. Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  41. ^ Allen, Nick (August 5, 2016). "Sasha Obama has summer job serving takeout food". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
  42. ^ "US First Daughter Sasha Obama serves seafood in summer job". BBC News. August 5, 2016. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
  43. ^ Londoño, Ernesto (January 19, 2017). "Malia Obama's Secret Trip to Bolivia and Peru". The New York Times. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
  44. ^ Rahman, Abid (January 20, 2017). "Malia Obama to Intern for Harvey Weinstein". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
  45. ^ Bitette, Nicole (August 22, 2017). "Malia Obama kicks off her college career at Harvard". New York Daily News. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
  46. ^ Sasha Obama graduates from high school with presidential parents looking on. USA Today. June 12, 2019.
  47. ^ Sasha Obama will begin college classes at the University of Michigan next week. Chicago Tribune. August 29, 2019.
  48. ^ "Barack and Michelle Obama stir buzz at daughter Sasha's USC graduation". Los Angeles Times. May 12, 2023.
  49. ^ January 31, Lester Fabian Brathwaite; EST, 2023 at 08:26 PM. "Donald Glover's 'Swarm' is like 'a sister' to 'Atlanta', says co-creator". EW.com. Retrieved February 11, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  50. ^ Zack Scharf, "Malia Obama Developing Short Film at Donald Glover’s Company; He Told Her: ‘If You Make a Bad Film, It Will Follow You Around’". Variety, April 4, 2023.
  51. ^ Anthony D'Alessandro, "TIFF Shorts Lineup Includes ‘Dammi’ Starring Riz Ahmed; Works By Mackenzie Davis, Yann Demange & More". Deadline Hollywood, August 9, 2023.
  52. ^ Aaron Couch (January 18, 2024). "Malia Obama Short Film 'The Heart' Screening at Sundance". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 19, 2023.
  53. ^ a b Scott, Janny (March 14, 2008). "A free-spirited wanderer who set Obama's path". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved February 13, 2009.
  54. ^ "Obama had multiethnic existence in Hawaii: Sections of potential 2008 candidate's life drawing greater scrutiny". February 6, 2007. Retrieved February 9, 2008.
  55. ^ Zeleny, Jeff (November 4, 2008). "Madelyn Dunham, Obama's grandmother, dies at 86". The New York Times. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  56. ^ "Madelyn Dunham, Obama's Grandmother, Dies". November 3, 2008. Archived from the original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved September 9, 2009.
  57. ^ Essoyan, Susan (November 3, 2008). "Madelyn Dunham blazed a trail for women in banking". Archived from the original on December 4, 2008. Retrieved November 3, 2008.
  58. ^ a b c "Press Release: Ancestry.com Discovers President Obama Related to First Documented Slave in America: Research Connects First African-American President to First African Slave in the American Colonies" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 20, 2012. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  59. ^ Stolberg, Sheryl Gay (July 30, 2012). "Obama Has Ties to Slavery Not by His Father but His Mother, Research Suggests". The New York Times. Retrieved October 28, 2021.
  60. ^ "Duke to publish paper by Obama's mother". Duke Chronicle. May 14, 2009. Retrieved February 6, 2012.
  61. ^ "The Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowed Fund". Retrieved January 2, 2012.
  62. ^ Jones, Tim (March 27, 2007). "Barack Obama: Mother not just a girl from Kansas; Stanley Ann Dunham shaped a future senator". Chicago Tribune. p. 1 (Tempo). Archived from the original on December 5, 2012. Retrieved February 16, 2009.
    "Video: Reflections on Obama's mother (02:34)". Chicago Tribune. March 27, 2007. Retrieved February 16, 2009.
  63. ^ "President Barack Obama's Ancestors and Kinships". Archived from the original on January 6, 2010. Retrieved June 6, 2009.
  64. ^ Fornek, Scott (September 9, 2007). "Mareen Duvall: No More Striking Figure". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on July 25, 2008. Retrieved June 16, 2008.
  65. ^ The 89th Infantry Division, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  66. ^ a b Johnson, Carla K. (July 22, 2008). "Obama's great-uncle recalls liberating Nazi camp". The Boston Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. Associated Press. Archived from the original on February 10, 2009. Retrieved April 21, 2018.
  67. ^ Major Garrett (May 27, 2008). "Obama Campaign Scrambles to Correct the Record on Uncle's War Service". Fox News Channel. Archived from the original on May 28, 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  68. ^ "Spiegel Interview With Obama's Great-Uncle : 'I Was Horrified by Lengths Men Will Go to Mistreat Other Men'". Der Spiegel. May 26, 2009. Retrieved October 19, 2009.
  69. ^ "Democrats salute Obama's great uncle". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. August 28, 2008. Archived from the original on February 2, 2009. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  70. ^ "Obama's Gramps: Gazing skyward on D-Day". NBC News. Archived from the original on August 14, 2009. Retrieved June 6, 2009.
  71. ^ Benac, Nancy (May 31, 2009). "Obama's Gramps: Backing Patton's army after D-Day". Forbes. Associated Press. Retrieved June 1, 2009.[dead link]
  72. ^ Kenney, Andrew (June 24, 2014). "UNC researcher, a pioneering academic, kept kinship to Obama to herself". The Charlotte Observer.
  73. ^ "Margaret A. Payne: Obituary". Legacy.com. June 22, 2014. Retrieved June 24, 2014.
  74. ^ a b Obama, Barack (2004). Dreams from My Father:A Story of Race and Inheritance. Three Rivers Press (First ed. 1995, Times Books). ISBN 978-1-4000-8277-3.
  75. ^ "'Toot': Obama grandmother a force that shaped him". Associated Press. August 25, 2008. Archived from the original on August 29, 2008. Retrieved August 29, 2008.
  76. ^ a b Smolenyak, Megan. "Rare Photograph of "Fully" Kearney, President Obama's Irish Ancestor, Discovered". Irish America. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  77. ^ Smolenyak, Megan. "Fulmoth Kearney, President Obama's Irish Immigrant Ancestor, Gets a Tombstone". The Huffington Post. December 18, 2014. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  78. ^ Smolenyak, Megan. "Photo of Barack Obama's Irish Immigrant 3rd Great-Grandfather, Fulmoth Kearney, Discovered". The Huffington Post. December 19, 2014. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
  79. ^ "Barack Obama draws huge crowd in Dublin". RTÉ News and Current Affairs. May 23, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
  80. ^ Loftus, Valerie (January 6, 2017). "10 reasons why Barack Obama Plaza is the best place on earth". The Daily Edge. Archived from the original on April 15, 2023.
  81. ^ Mullooly, Ciaran (August 20, 2018). "Barack Obama statue unveiled in Moneygall, Co Offaly". RTÉ. Archived from the original on February 4, 2024.
  82. ^ Dan Nakaso, The Inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama, Honolulu Advertiser, January 18, 2009.
  83. ^ a b Habib, Ridlwan. "Keluarga Besar Lolo Soetoro, Kerabat Dekat Calon Presiden Amerika/Lolo Soetoro's Extended Family, Close Relatives to American Presidential Nominee" Archived February 25, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, Jawa Pos Daily, Edition of November 5, 2008.
  84. ^ Date of married acc. to application by Stanley Ann to amend her US passport, June 29, 1967.
  85. ^ Diana Gale Matthiesen. "Obama Family Tree". Dgmweb.net. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  86. ^ a b Green, Stephanie; Glover, Elizabeth (August 10, 2009). "Sister and niece act". The Washington Times. Retrieved September 23, 2009.
  87. ^ a b Nolan, Daniel (January 21, 2009). "Obama's Burlington kin share in the celebration swearing-in". Hamilton Spectator. Archived from the original on July 3, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2009.
  88. ^ "Obama has links to Malaysia". The Star. Malaysia. Archived from the original on April 20, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  89. ^ Nolan, Daniel (June 11, 2008). "Relative: Obama's got 'a good handle on Canada'". The Hamilton Spectator. Archived from the original on September 2, 2008. Retrieved July 3, 2008.
  90. ^ Nolan, Daniel (June 11, 2008). "Obama's Burlington connection". The Hamilton Spectator. Archived from the original on September 2, 2008. Retrieved June 21, 2008.
  91. ^ Misner, Jason (June 20, 2008). "Barack Obama was here". Burlington Post. Retrieved July 3, 2008.
  92. ^ Fornek, Scott (September 9, 2007). "He helped me find my voice". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on January 22, 2009.
  93. ^ Cooper, Tom (January 20, 2009). "Keep watch for Obama". The Hamilton Spectator. Archived from the original on February 3, 2009. Retrieved January 28, 2009.
  94. ^ "Chicago Sun Times article with her picture". Archived from the original on August 27, 2008.
  95. ^ Kemp, Brian (June 18, 2008). "Obama in Canada: 'Uncle Rocky' and his Burlington family ties". CBC news. Retrieved September 5, 2009.
  96. ^ "University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Academy of Creative Media Faculty. Retrieved September 5, 2009". Hawaii.edu. July 23, 2007. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  97. ^ a b Swersey, Bill (May 9, 2013). "Konrad Ng: The Asian Pacific American Experience is 'Quintessentially American'". Asia Blog. Asia Society. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
  98. ^ "Konrad Ng". White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Archived from the original on January 24, 2016. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
  99. ^ "Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Center Names New Director". NBC News. October 14, 2016.
  100. ^ "President Obama has ties to metro's Memorial Day celebrations". NBC Action News. March 16, 2010. Archived from the original on May 31, 2010. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  101. ^ "Olathe Memorial Cemetery: Burial Search". City of Olathe, Kansas. 2016. Archived from the original on December 31, 2016. Retrieved December 30, 2016.
  102. ^ "Obama related to America's first slave". USA Today. July 30, 2012.
  103. ^ Paul Heinegg, "Bunch Family", Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, 1995–2005
  104. ^ Fornek, Scott (September 9, 2007). "Obama Family Tree". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on July 17, 2009. Retrieved June 6, 2009.
  105. ^ Read, Max; van Zuylen-Wood, Simon (May 1–14, 2017). "Beyond Alt". New York.
  106. ^ Dreams from My Father, p. 376
  107. ^ Oywa, John (August 16, 2004). "Kenya: Special Report: Sleepy Little Village Where Obama Traces His Own Roots". The Nation – via AllAfrica.
  108. ^ Dreams from My Father, pages 425–426.
  109. ^ Dreams from My Father, page 396.
  110. ^ a b Dreams from My Father, page 397.
  111. ^ a b Dreams from My Father, page 400.
  112. ^ "The Apple Fell Far from the Tree", New York Review of Books, May 12, 2011
  113. ^ MacIntyre, Ben; Orengoh, Paul (December 3, 2008). "Beatings and abuse made Barack Obamas grandfather loathe the British". The Times. London. Archived from the original on January 20, 2009. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  114. ^ "Obama's Praise For 'Extraordinary' Britain". Sky News. July 12, 2009.
  115. ^ "President Obama and Adventism". blacksdahistory.org. Archived from the original on October 29, 2018. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
  116. ^ a b Houreld, Katharine (March 5, 2008). "Obama's grandma slams 'untruths'". USA Today. Associated Press. Retrieved May 2, 2010. See also this correction.
  117. ^ "Peter Firstbrook, writer and filmmaker, most recent book The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family". Peterfirstbrook.com. February 3, 2011. Archived from the original on January 17, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  118. ^ Oywa, John (August 15, 2004). "Special Report: Sleepy Little Village Where Obama Traces His Own Roots". The Nation.
  119. ^ "The President's Kin" (PDF). nymag.com.
  120. ^ a b "Eastandard.net - eastandard Resources and Information".
  121. ^ Dreams from My Father, pages 408–412.
  122. ^ a b c Fredrick, Donde (August 6, 2015). Obama Senior. A Dream Fulfilled. East African Educational Publishers. ISBN 9789966560391 – via Google Books.
  123. ^ Leo Odera Omolo (December 23, 2008). "Fighting to get a share of the Obamas: The proposed Obama Sr museum has caused a big split in the family of the US President-elect right in the middle". Wordpress.com. Retrieved October 19, 2009.
  124. ^ "Q&A ON THE NEWS". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. February 25, 2009. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  125. ^ a b Dreams from my Father, page 408.
  126. ^ "Ancestry of Barack Obama". Archived from the original on March 2, 2008. Retrieved August 4, 2008.
  127. ^ Oywa, John (August 15, 2004). "Kenya: Special Report: Sleepy Little Village Where Obama Traces His Own Roots (Page 2 of 2)". allAfrica.com. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  128. ^ a b Crilly, Rob (February 27, 2008). "Dreams from Obama's Grandmother". Time. Archived from the original on March 2, 2008. Retrieved July 3, 2008.
  129. ^ Pflanz, Mike (January 11, 2008). "Barack Obama's Kenyan relatives keep faith". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on April 16, 2008.
  130. ^ Fornek, Scott (September 9, 2007). "Sarah Obama – 'Sparkling, laughing eyes'". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on June 4, 2008. Retrieved July 15, 2008.
  131. ^ "In Kenya, Barack Obama's family prays for end to conflict". The Times. London. Archived from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  132. ^ "Barack Obama in Kenya". CNN. Archived from the original on June 18, 2008.
  133. ^ Daily Nation, July 8, 2008: "Obama granny's day out with envoys and top politicians" Archived July 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Daily Nation, July 8, 2008
  134. ^ Kantor, Jodi (April 30, 2007). "A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith". The New York Times. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  135. ^ "Obama's Step-Grandmother Continues Educating Young Kenyans", NPR (November 22, 2014).
  136. ^ "The Standard | Online Edition :: Fascinating story of Obama family". The Standard. Kenya. Archived from the original on August 18, 2009. Retrieved August 11, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  137. ^ "Kenya: All Obama kin to spend voting day in Kogelo". afrika.no. October 27, 2008. Archived from the original on January 13, 2009. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  138. ^ Cohen, Roger (March 6, 2008). "The Obamas of the World". The New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  139. ^ Lindsay, Anna (January 20, 2009). "Barack's bingo-loving stepmother". BBC News.
  140. ^ "Kezia Obama in Chris Moyles' Quiz Night". Archived from the original on April 8, 2009. Retrieved April 12, 2009.
  141. ^ "Keziah: First and last wife of Obama Sr". New Vision Online (Uganda). Newvision.co.ug. January 2, 2009. Archived from the original on May 13, 2011. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
  142. ^ Roche, Darragh (2021). "Barack Obama's Stepmother, Kezia Obama, Has Died". Newsweek. April 14, 2021. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
  143. ^ jpt (June 18, 2008). "From the Fact Check Desk: What Did Obama's Half-Brother Say About Obama's Background". ABC News.
  144. ^ a b c d e f Maliti, Tom (October 26, 2004). "Obama's Brother Chooses Life in Slow Lane". Associated Press. Archived from the original on April 21, 2008.
  145. ^ Dreams from my Father, p. 265.
  146. ^ Dreams from my Father, p. 262.
  147. ^ a b *Oywa, John (August 15, 2004). "Sleepy Little Village Where Obama Traces His Own Roots". The Daily Nation.
  148. ^ "Who Is Malik Obama? At Last Debate, Trump Supporter And Half-Brother Of The President To Be Guest Of Republican Nominee". International Business Times. October 19, 2016.
  149. ^ Warah, Rasna (June 9, 2008). "We cannot lay claims on Obama; he's not one of us – Obama in this world". Daily Nation. Retrieved July 10, 2008.
  150. ^ Gichana, David (January 14, 2013). "Obama's Step-Brother Will Seek Governorship of Kenyan County". Bloomberg.
  151. ^ Walker, Hunter (March 7, 2013). "President Obama's Brother Loses Election in Kenya". The New York Observer. Retrieved March 7, 2013.
  152. ^ Vincent, Isabel (July 24, 2016). "Why Obama's half-brother says he'll be voting for Donald Trump". New York Post. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
  153. ^ Begley, Sarah (October 18, 2016). "Donald Trump Is Bringing President Obama's Half-Brother to the Third Debate". Time.
  154. ^ Scott Fornek (September 9, 2007). "AUMA OBAMA: 'Her restlessness, her independence'". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on March 14, 2008. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  155. ^ a b c Gathmann, Florian; Gregor Peter Schmitz; Jochen Schönmann (July 24, 2008). "Studentin in der Bundesrepublik: Wie Auma Obama mit Deutschland haderte". Der Spiegel (in German). Retrieved July 24, 2008.
  156. ^ "Obama relative 'to stand as MP'". BBC News. May 28, 2009. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  157. ^ Ridley, Jane (March 30, 2009). "President Obama's British Step-mom, Kezia Obama, proud her son is meeting Queen". Daily News. New York. Archived from the original on April 2, 2009. Retrieved April 2, 2009.
  158. ^ "Preise der Stiftung | de | TÜV Rheinland". www.tuv.com (in German). Archived from the original on June 28, 2018. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  159. ^ "Internationaler TÜV Rheinland Global Compact Award im Überblick" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 3, 2018. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  160. ^ "Flight attendant chats with Obama's brother". thisisnottingham.co.uk. January 20, 2009. Archived from the original on July 3, 2009. Retrieved April 11, 2009.
  161. ^ a b c d Jacobs, Sally H. (2011). The other Barack: the bold and reckless life of President Obama's father. New York: PublicAffairs. pp. 160–161, 165, 172–174, 177, 187–190, 193–196, 199–202, 226–227, 230–231, 247. ISBN 978-1-58648-793-5.
  162. ^ "Madarikindergarten.com". www.madarikindergarten.com. Archived from the original on November 13, 2008. Retrieved July 13, 2008.
  163. ^ "Barack Obama's brother pushes Chinese imports on US". The Times. London. Archived from the original on August 15, 2008. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  164. ^ "Obama half-brother runs Internet company in China". Thomascrampton.com. July 27, 2008. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  165. ^ a b Roger Cohen (March 17, 2008). "Obama's Brother in China". The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2008.
  166. ^ "Chief Rabbi Metzger says Obama's Jewish half-brother will lobby to release Pollard", The Jewish Connection, 4;16.
  167. ^ "Obama's half brother performs in China". China Daily. January 17, 2009. Archived from the original on November 21, 2009. Retrieved March 26, 2009.
  168. ^ Lai, Jane (January 19, 2009). "Obama's half brother goes public". Shenzhen Daily. Retrieved November 5, 2009.
  169. ^ "Youku Buzz (daily) – Blog Archive – Barack Obama's Half-Brother in Concert". Buzz.youku.com. January 18, 2009. Archived from the original on January 22, 2009. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  170. ^ Keith B. Richburg (November 5, 2009). "Obama's half brother goes public with new book". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  171. ^ Barbara Demick (November 5, 2009). "Obama's half brother describes abuse". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  172. ^ "Obama's half brother claims their shared father was physically abusive in explosive new book". Daily News. New York. Associated Press. Retrieved December 27, 2013.
  173. ^ "Obama's brother writes about abuse" Archived April 28, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Associated Press, December 18, 2013.
  174. ^ jaketapper (July 28, 2008). "Political Punch: Barack Obama's Branch-y Family Tree". ABC News. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  175. ^ "David Ndesandjo". Geditcom.com. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  176. ^ Fornek, Scott (September 9, 2007). "HALF-BROTHER GEORGE: 'I would be there for him'". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on October 20, 2007. Retrieved August 4, 2008.
  177. ^ a b c d e Pflanz, Mike (August 21, 2008). "Barack Obama is my inspiration, says lost brother". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on August 23, 2008. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
  178. ^ a b c Crilly, Rob (August 22, 2008). "Life is good in my Nairobi slum, says Barack Obama's younger brother". The Times. London. Retrieved August 23, 2008.[dead link]
  179. ^ Obama, George (January 2, 2010). "Being Obama's Brother", Newsweek.
  180. ^ a b McKenzie, David (August 23, 2008). "Behind the Scenes: Meet George Obama". CNN. Retrieved October 26, 2008.
  181. ^ Pisa, Nick (August 20, 2008). "Barack Obama's 'lost' brother found in Kenya". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on August 20, 2008. Retrieved August 20, 2008.
  182. ^ Wadhams, Nick (October 7, 2008). "Corsi in Kenya: Obama's Nation Boots Obama Nation Author". Time. Archived from the original on October 8, 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  183. ^ D'Souza, Dinesh. "How I became George Obama's 'brother'", Fox News: Opinion, August 16, 2012, Retrieved 2012-08-17
  184. ^ Obama, George, with Damien Lewis. Homeland: An Extraordinary Story of Hope and Survival, Simon and Schuster, 2011
  185. ^ Bond, Paul (July 9, 2012). "Barack Obama's Brother to Make Film Debut in Anti-Obama Documentary". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 28, 2012.
  186. ^ a b c d e Sacchetti, Maria; Dan Adams (August 31, 2011). "Obama's uncle is called a fugitive". The Boston Globe. Boston. Archived from the original on November 4, 2011. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
  187. ^ a b "Packie owner praises Prez's troubled uncle". Boston Herald. August 31, 2011. Retrieved August 31, 2011.
  188. ^ "The Obama Family Tree". Chicago Sun-Times. September 9, 2007. Archived from the original on June 10, 2014.
  189. ^ a b Sacchetti, Maria (January 30, 2013). "President Obama's uncle ordered to face deportation hearing Dec. 3 by immigration judge". The Boston Globe. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  190. ^ Bone, James; Philp, Catherine (August 29, 2011). "Barack Obama's uncle has been arrested and held as illegal immigrant". The Australian.
  191. ^ Blake, Aaron & Juliet Eilperin. After denial, White House now says Obama lived with uncle, The Washington Post, December 5, 2013.
  192. ^ a b c Sacchetti, Maria (September 9, 2011). "Obama's uncle quietly released from jail". The Boston Globe. Boston. Retrieved September 9, 2011.
  193. ^ Lavoie, Denise (August 29, 2011). "Official: Obama uncle here illegally since 1992". Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
  194. ^ Zaremba, John (September 10, 2011). "President's uncle released by feds, but must 'check in'". Boston Herald. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  195. ^ Dave Wedge. "President Obama's uncle had Social Security ID".
  196. ^ Sacchetti, Maria (December 3, 2012). "President Obama's uncle wins new bid to try to stay in US". The Boston Globe. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
  197. ^ Zaremba, John (January 30, 2013). "President's uncle fights for permanent residency". Boston Herald. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  198. ^ Sacchetti, Maria (December 3, 2013). "Obama's uncle allowed to remain in US, judge rules". The Boston Globe. Boston. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  199. ^ "First read, MSNBC". MSNBC. October 24, 2012. Archived from the original on February 12, 2009. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  200. ^ "Barack Obama's Kenyan aunt 'living in Boston housing project'". The Daily Telegraph. London. October 30, 2008. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved February 6, 2012.
  201. ^ "Boston Housing Authority 'flabbergastered' Barack Obama's aunt living in Southie". Boston Herald. October 31, 2008. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  202. ^ Frizell, Sam. "Barack Obama's Aunt Has Died", Time, April 8, 2014.
  203. ^ a b c d Rachel L. Swarns, "Meet Your Cousin, the First Lady: A Family Story, Long Hidden", The New York Times, June 16, 2012
  204. ^ Swarns, Rachel L.; Kantor, Jodi (October 7, 2009). "In First Lady's Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery". The New York Times. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
  205. ^ Louttit, Meghan (June 22, 2012). "The First Family: A New Glimpse of Michelle Obama's White Ancestors — Interactive Feature". The New York Times. Southern States (US). Retrieved December 14, 2012.
  206. ^ a b Bee, Trisha (June 11, 2013). "Monument to Michelle Obama's ancestor knocked down".
  207. ^ Taylor Marsh (August 25, 2008). "Political Analysis, National Security and Breaking News". Taylor Marsh. Archived from the original on May 25, 2024. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  208. ^ a b Lia LoBello (January 2, 2008). "First Families: Radar introduces you to the next president's relatives". Radar Online. Archived from the original on January 23, 2009. Retrieved January 28, 2009.
  209. ^ Rachel L. Swarns (January 9, 2009). "Obama's Mother-in-Law to Move Into the White House". The New York Times. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  210. ^ a b "Will Obama mum-in-law make it a family affair in the White House?". Agence France-Presse. November 22, 2008. Archived from the original on January 23, 2009. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  211. ^ Philip Sherwell (November 8, 2008). "Michelle Obama persuades First Granny to join new White House team". The Daily Telegraph (UK). London. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 9, 2009.
  212. ^ "'First granny' embraces life in D.C". Politico. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
  213. ^ "RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: Dowling Family Genealogy". Wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved January 31, 2009.
  214. ^ "Oregon State University Beavers: Craig Robinson bio". Archived from the original on November 19, 2012. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
  215. ^ Smolenyak, Megan (April 15, 2012). "Ancestors of Michelle Obama in the 1940 Census". HuffPost. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  216. ^ "Robbie Shields, Ward 6, Chicago, Chicago City, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 103-380, sheet 3B, line 60, family 56, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627". Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 933. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  217. ^ Obama, Michelle (2018). Becoming (First ed.). New York: Crown. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-5247-6313-8.
  218. ^ Obama, Michelle (2018). Becoming (First ed.). New York: Crown. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-5247-6313-8.
  219. ^ Obama, Michelle (2018). Becoming (First ed.). New York: Crown. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-5247-6313-8.
  220. ^ Obama, Michelle (2018). Becoming (First ed.). New York: Crown. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-5247-6313-8.
  221. ^ Obama, Michelle (2018). Becoming (First ed.). New York: Crown. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-5247-6313-8.
  222. ^ Obama, Michelle (2018). Becoming (First ed.). New York: Crown. p. 130. ISBN 978-1-5247-6313-8.
  223. ^ Weiss, Anthony (September 2, 2008). "Michelle Obama Has a Rabbi in Her Family". The Forward. Retrieved October 9, 2008.