So who are the 2 presidents?
I once read an article on French nobles. (It was on Wikipedia, but I cannot find it now.) The article claimed that peasants were encouraged to marry as young as possible, while nobles were encouraged to find a “suitable” match. “Suitability” generally had more to do with social and economic advantage, than for love. As a result, aristocrats tended to marry much later in life, and to have far fewer children, than commoners.
Yeah, Aaron Burr had a daughter, Theodosia. She in turn had a daughter who died young. She was lost at sea before having any more children. Nonetheless, Burr is my 7th great uncle.
Reagan’s children are still alive, as far as I know.
Re-read that quote.
I came in to mention this piece of presidential trivia. Pretty amazing, considering that Tyler was born in 1790.
DNA testing has confirmed he has a whole lot of descendants by his slave Sally…don’t remember her last name. And his white descendants have include them in the family group.
Nope–his daughter Maureen died years ago from skin cancer.
But his parents are dead. John Reagan died in 1941 and Nelle Wilson Reagan died in 1962. I think it’s safe to assume his grandparents and other ancestors are dead as well.
This may have been the case in some cultures at some times, but it’s the opposite of the usual pattern in early modern and pre-modern Europe. More commonly, people who had to earn a living married fairly late, while nobles and royalty could be married very young indeed (although they weren’t necessarily expected to consummate the marriage immediately, and in some cases might not even meet face to face until well after the marrriage ceremony).
I think the last presidential ancestor to die was George H. W. Bush, in November of last year.
Barbara Bush just recently passed away.
The group’s that historically have had big families haven’t really been represented in office. There wasn’t a lot of 10 kid Catholic guys running for office back in the day.
Hemings, I believe. Only four of her children are believed to have survived to adulthood, and a couple of them passed as white, at least for a while.
Regards,
Shodan
It wasn’t that long ago that a former US president still had both his parents still living. 2018, actually, just last year
That raises another interesting question: how many people have had the distinction of being living ancestors of (current or former) US presidents? Off the top of my head, George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Calvin Coolidge, and Bill Clinton all had a living parent for part of their presidency, and JFK had two living parents for all of his (and, in Rose’s case, for more than thirty years afterward), and so, of course, did Bush-43.
Roosevelt has quite a few descendants. FDR and Eleanor had 22 grandchildren.
Obama’s grandmother died just before he was elected, IIRC.
If John McCain had won in 2012, we’d have a living presidential ancestor. His mother, Roberta Wright McCain, is still alive at 107.
Obama’s parents died quite young; his mother was born in 1942 and died in 1995, age 52. She would be 76 if she were alive today and Barack Obama Sr., who died when he was 46, would be 83. His grandmother died age 86, in November 2008, 2 days before he was elected. So with Obama we just missed having a living president’s grandmother.