Malia Obama and Sasha Obama
Sasha Obama in 2015, photo by wfpa/Bigstock.com
Birth Name:
*Malia Ann Obama
*Natasha Obama
Place of Birth: Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Date of Birth:
*July 4, 1998 (Malia)
*June 10, 2001 (Sasha)
Ethnicity:
*paternal grandfather – Luo Kenyan
*paternal grandmother – English, small amounts of Scottish, Irish, German, Welsh, Swiss-German, French Huguenot, possibly remote African
*mother – African-American (mostly), including Gullah, as well as distant English, Scottish, and Irish
Malia Obama and Sasha Obama are the daughters of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, and of lawyer and writer Michelle Obama. Their uncle (mother’s brother) is college basketball coach and broadcaster Craig Robinson (not the actor of the same name).
Three of their grandparents were/are black, while their paternal grandmother was white.
Malia and Sasha’s paternal grandfather was Barack Hussein Obama (the son of Onyango and Habiba/Habibah Akumu/Akkumu Nyanjango/Nyanjoga). Malia and Sasha’s grandfather Barack was born in Kanyadhiang Village, Rachuonyo, Kenya, and was a governmental economist, who was of the Luo tribe. Onyango’s name was changed to Hussein Onyango Obama; he was the son of Obama and Nyaoke. Habiba was the daughter of Njango/Njoga and Bwogi Otore.
Malia and Sasha’s paternal grandmother was Stanley Ann Dunham (the daughter of Stanley Armour Dunham and Madelyn Lee “Toot” Payne). Malia and Sasha’s grandmother Stanley was born in Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas, and worked as an anthropologist; she had English, and small amounts (to varying degrees) of Scottish, Irish, German, Welsh, Swiss-German, and French Huguenot ancestry. Malia and Sasha’s great-grandfather Stanley was the son of Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham, whose maternal grandfather was Irish; and of Ruth Lucille Armour. Malia and Sasha’s great-grandmother Madelyn was the daughter of Rolla Charles “R. C.” Payne and Leona Belle McCurry.
Malia and Sasha’s maternal grandfather was Fraser C. Robinson III (the son of Fraser C. Robinson II and LaVaughn Delores Johnson). Malia and Sasha’s grandfather Fraser was born in Chicago, Cook, Illinois. Malia and Sasha’s great-grandfather Fraser was the son of Fraser Robinson and Rosella/Rose Ella Cohen. LaVaughn was the daughter of James Preston Johnson and Phoebe Moten.
Malia and Sasha’s maternal grandmother is Marian Lois Shields (the daughter of Purnell Shields and Rebecca Jumper/Coleman). Marian was born in Chicago, Cook, Illinois. Purnell was the son of Robert Lee/Leacel Shields and Annie/Anna/Anne Lawson/Laws. Rebecca was the daughter of James Jumper and Eliza Tinsley.
Malia and Sasha’s maternal grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and great-great-great-grandparents, were all black. They have Gullah roots. Malia and Sasha’s mother also has some European ancestry on her family tree, with distant English, Scottish, and Irish, roots. One of Malia and Sasha’s mother’s white ancestors was their great-great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Marion Shields. Charles was the son of Henry Wells Shields and Christian/Christianna Patterson.
Malia and Sasha’s father has distant Irish ancestry, going back to his great-great-great-grandfather, Falmouth/Fulmoth Kearney, who arrived in the States in 1850, from Moneygall in Ireland. Research done by a team of genealogists has suggested that Malia and Sasha’s paternal grandmother had remote African-American ancestry (in the 1600s), through possible descent from a slave named John Punch.
In page 13 of his autobiography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, 1995, Malia and Sasha’s father writes that a distant ancestor of his mother’s “had indeed been a full-blooded Cherokee” [Native American]. No Cherokee Native American ancestry has yet been documented/verified for Malia and Sasha’s father.
Malia and Sasha are first cousins, twice removed, of Rabbi Capers Funnye. Capers is a Jew-by-choice. Malia and Sasha’s maternal great-great-grandparents, Fraser Robinson and Rose Ella Cohen, were also Rabbi Funnye’s maternal grandparents.
Malia and Sasha’s maternal great-great-grandmother Rose Ella Cohen had the usually Jewish surname Cohen. Rose was an African-American woman, whose father, Caesar/Sesar Cohen, was also African-American. It is not clear where the Cohen surname originates in this family, or if Caesar Cohen had Jewish ancestry of some kind.
Sources: Genealogies of Malia Obama and Sasha Obama – http://www.geni.com
http://familypedia.wikia.com
Genealogy of Malia Obama and Sasha Obama (focusing on their father’s side) – http://www.wikitree.com
Genealogies of Malia and Sasha’s father – http://www.wargs.com
http://famouskin.com
Obituaries and genealogies of Malia and Sasha’s paternal grandparents, Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Dunham – http://www.findagrave.com
Article about Malia and Sasha’s father’s Irish ancestry – http://living.oneindia.in
Article suggesting that Malia and Sasha’s paternal grandmother, Stanley Ann Dunham, had remote African-American ancestry – http://www.nytimes.com
Genealogy of Malia and Sasha’s mother – http://famouskin.com
Genealogy of Malia and Sasha’s mother (focusing on her own father’s side) – http://www.wargs.com
Notes on Malia and Sasha’s mother’s ancestry, by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak – http://www.honoringourancestors.com
Pictures and some of Malia and Sasha’s mother’s family history – http://www.dailymail.co.uk
Malia and Sasha’s maternal great-great-grandmother, Rosella/Rose Ella Cohen, on the 1880 U.S. Census – https://www.familysearch.org
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