28 July 2012

How American is Mitt Romney?

Mitt has been making mumblings about how President Obama doesn't understand our Anglo-Saxon heritage.  So I thought I'd look into figuring how how American, and how Anglo-Saxon each of them are.  It turns out there's a really great website for this sort of information: there's a fairly complete genealogy for both men available on-line:

Wargs:romney.html
Wargs:obama.html

Obama was born in Honolulu, Romney in Detroit

Romney's Mom was born in Logan, Utah in 1908.  Obama's in Witchita, Kansas in 1942
Romney's Dad was born in Chihuahua, México, in 1907.  Obama's in Kenya in 1936.

So, their parents are exactly equally American, although George Romney was born of American parents trying to evade polygamy laws by moving to Mexico.

Romney's paternal grandparents were born in Utah Territory.
His maternal grandfather was born in England, and his maternal grandmother was born in Idaho Territory.
so NONE of his grandparents were born in America, although 3 were in US territories.  2 of Romney's great grandparents were born in England, one in what is today Germany, one in Canada, the rest in the US.  Only 5 of his 16 GG grandparents were born in the US and 8 of his 32 GGGgrandparents.  The rest were in Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada, or what is today Germany.   Most came after the revolution, although he has ten ancestors who participated in the Revolution.  At least 25% of his ancestry cannot be regarded as Anglo-Saxon.  At least half of his ancestors moved to Utah before it was a US Territory, and later Mexico, specifically to avoid being considered American.

All of Obama's paternal ancestors were born in Kenya.
All 6 of Obama's maternal grandparents and great-grandparents were born in Kansas. On his mother's side, basically all of his ancestors were born-in-America WASPs, with very few exceptions:  he has a great-great-grandmother who was born in Ireland.  He has a G^6 grandfather who was born in Switzerland.   All the rest were born in America or the colonies, and apart from the few exceptions, essentially all of his maternal ancestors seem to have emigrated to America in the 17th century.  At least 14 of them fought on the American side in the American Revolution.  At most 55% of his ancestry is not Anglo-Saxon.

So:  Romney is indeed more Anglo-Saxon than Obama, but only by a little.  It seems to me that leaving America to try to avoid its laws (at least two generations of Romney's ancestors did this) undercuts his Americanism a little.

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