Genealogical Stories
Thursday, October 8, 2009 – 7:01 pmThe path to our ancestors is often fraught with brick walls and misleading information. But occasionally we get a break, like Michelle Obama. Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, the speaker at last months Washington State Genealogy Conference, recently tracked Mrs. Obama’s family back to 1844, during a time of inequality and racial tension. Mrs. Obama’s great-great-great grandmother was a slave. And her son was biracial, born of a black mother and a white father. Mrs. Obama is an ancestor of a woman who survived some of the worst things life can throw at you and survived. Her descendants were carpenters and painters and civil rights activists and the first lady of the United States. Stories are waiting to be told and, while we may not have a Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak to help us, the excitement is in the discovery and the stories that are waiting to be told. For more on the search of Mrs. Obama’s ancestors you can read the New York Times story.



