Everyne is related to the rich and famous… Most of us just don’t know how.
The online genealogy site, Ancestry.com
has carried out a survey revealing 28 Irish Americans share the same Irish ancestor as President Obama. Just four years ago Obama learned of his Irish ancestor Falmouth Kearney who fled Ireland during the Great Famine and came to the United States.
Lead family historian Anastasia Harman from Ancestry.com explained how they came to find these 28 relatives. She said “This is part of a larger project…As sort of a micro study of Irish immigrants’ impact on America, we wanted to pick a ship full of Irish immigrants that came during the potato famine and see how they impacted America.”
Ancestry.com found that Kearney had travelled on the 903-ton ship Marmion and arrived in New York harbor in March 1850 with 288 other Irish emigrants. He was travelling with his sister and her husband, Margaret and William Cleary.
Read the full article by Cathy Hayes at the March 22, 2011 edition of IrishCentral.com.
