# What type of white is Romney? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 8, 2012, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033 "2012-10-08T00:14:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/21 "2012-10-08T18:35:54Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > That would be helpful in determining what kind of mineral Romney is. Perhaps chalk? On the Mohs hardness scale he’s talc. You can indent him with a fingernail. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/22 "2012-10-08T18:36:28Z")
[QUOTE=Simplicio] I’m actually more surprised at how far back genealogists claim to be able to trace back Obama and his wife’s slave ancestors. Presumably most slaves were illiterate and not generating their own birth-records, and I wouldn’t think there would be much incentive for owners to care which slave came who newborn slaves parents were. [/QUOTE] Just a WAG, but maybe since slaves were property they kept good records for the same reason they kept breeding records for good horses and such. Distasteful, but maybe that’s the reason? ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/23 "2012-10-08T18:38:09Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > That would be helpful in determining what kind of mineral Romney is. Perhaps chalk? 😃 Was going to go back and correct that, but then . . . perhaps[Alabaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabaster) ; that would explain the browness under certain conditions. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/24 "2012-10-08T18:58:26Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I’m actually more surprised at how far back genealogists claim to be able to trace back Obama and his wife’s slave ancestors. Presumably most slaves were illiterate and not generating their own birth-records, and I wouldn’t think there would be much incentive for owners to care which slave came who newborn slaves parents were. The article that was linked, if I read it right, said only one generation was slaves; the children were free mixed-race land-owners in Virginia. And that was the 1600’s. By the time weird ‘one drop rule’ stuff came into effect, probably nobody was aware they had a black ancestor anymore. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/25 "2012-10-08T20:19:41Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Just a WAG, but maybe since slaves were property they kept good records for the same reason they kept breeding records for good horses and such. Distasteful, but maybe that’s the reason? I understand genealogists looking for slave ancestors look at tax records first instead of census records. Owners would keep track of their primary financial assets. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/26 "2012-10-09T07:26:37Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I’m actually more surprised at how far back genealogists claim to be able to trace back Obama and his wife’s slave ancestors. Cite? [I posted an OP regarding Obama’s putative descent from a free-man son of John Punch](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=661610), but Punch’s own ancestry is unknown. [An ancestry for Michelle was shown in the N.Y. Times](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/10/08/us/politics/20091008-obama-family-tree.html), but AFAICT no ancestries are shown for the identified slaves, unless you include [“slaves” like Dolphus](http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=ssimonw&id=I126266), who were emancipated as toddlers. (Dolphus, born ca 1860, took the surname of his mother’s owner, Charles M. Shields. Some sources show Shields as Dolphus’ father as well as owner, but Megan Smolenyak (source for N.Y. Times article) shows the father as “unknown white man.”) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/27 "2012-10-09T07:44:10Z")
You’re right. I missed that Punch’s offspring weren’t slaves. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/28 "2012-10-09T13:52:04Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Just a WAG, but maybe since slaves were property they kept good records for the same reason they kept breeding records for good horses and such. Distasteful, but maybe that’s the reason? Not generally. Except in unusual circumstances, all the geneologists have to go by are census records that record the number of slaves and their genders. No names. Most blacks face a great big void trying to trace their slave ancestry back past 1865. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/29 "2012-10-09T14:01:10Z")
Wonder Bread white, crust removed by the nanny. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2012, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/30 "2012-10-09T22:41:23Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > The Church keeps some of the most extensive genealogical records in the world. Apparently Mormon theology allows post-death baptism of ancestors, but you have to have those ancestors names, so they’ve put a lot of effort into tracing back family trees. > > Sort of a silly reason from a secular perspective, but the end result is nice, as they provide a pretty good resource for genealogical resources even for people outside the Church. Also, it provided Arthur Kane with a day job while the fates (and Morrissey) worked their way around to getting the New York Dolls to reunite. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2012, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/31 "2012-10-11T22:29:07Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Just a WAG, but maybe since slaves were property they kept good records for the same reason they kept breeding records for good horses and such. Distasteful, but maybe that’s the reason? Slaves weren’t selectively bred. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033/32 "2012-10-16T11:08:52Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I’ll take “As White As It Gets” for five hundred, Alex! Heh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-white-is-romney/637033.md?page=1)