Michelle Obama's DNA Test Show Slave Owner as Ancestor

**Elspeth** · 07-22-2013, 12:19 AM

http://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/2012/09...nal+Paid+Media

Michelle Obama's DNA Test Show Slave Owner as Ancestor

First Lady Michelle Obama always suspected that she had white ancestors. But she had no idea who they were. With DNA testing and research, I was able to solve that mystery and finally identify the white forbears who had remained hidden in her family tree for more than a century.

All across the country, growing numbers of people are turning to DNA testing as a tool to help unlock the secrets of their roots, using companies such as ancestry.com, among others. When I started researching my new book, “American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama,’’ I pored over historical documents that I found in local archives, courthouses and libraries as well as records that I found online on ancestry.com and other state and local databases. But I knew that DNA testing would be the only way to unearth the truth.

I suspected that Mrs. Obama’s white ancestors belonged to the white Shields family that had owned her great-great-great grandmother, Melvinia Shields. So I persuaded several descendants of the black and white Shields to do DNA testing.

The results showed that the two families were related. The DNA testing indicated that Melvinia’s owner’s son was the likely father of Melvinia’s biracial child, Dolphus Shields. (Dolphus Shields is the first lady’s great-great grandfather.)

This was painful news for many of the Shields descendants. They knew that that Melvinia might have been raped and that their kinship originated during slavery, one of the darkest chapters of our history.

But last month, members of both sides of the family – black and white — put aside the pain of the past. They got together for the very first time in Rex, Georgia at a ceremony to commemorate Melvinia’s life. They swapped family stories, posed for photographs, exchanged phone numbers and had a meal together.

It was something to see.

David Applin, who is Melvinia’s great-grandson, said the reunion was “wonderful.” And Jarrod Shields, who is the great-great-great grandson of Melvinia’s owner, described it as a day “my family will never forget.”

**Rockntractor** · 07-22-2013, 12:29 AM

Allrighty then, can we get a Sample of Barack's DNA for testing or do we have to scrape some off George Soros's butt cheeks?

**Elspeth** · 07-22-2013, 12:45 AM

Originally Posted by Rockntractor

Allrighty then, can we get a Sample of Barack's DNA for testing or do we have to scrape some off George Soros's butt cheeks?

Ouch!

I just put this up here so when people accuse those of us whose families immigrated here after slavery of "keeping slaves", we can turn back and say "That was your ancestor, honey."

**Rockntractor** · 07-22-2013, 12:50 AM

Originally Posted by Elspeth

Ouch!

I just put this up here so when people accuse those of us whose families immigrated here after slavery of "keeping slaves", we can turn back and say "That was your ancestor, honey."

From what I have read Barack's ancestors caught and traded the slaves that were sent here.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/...d_slavery.html

**Elspeth** · 07-22-2013, 12:50 AM

Originally Posted by Rockntractor

From what I have read Barack's ancestors caught and traded the slaves that were sent here.

Then they both need to apologize to Trayvon Martin's family.

**noonwitch** · 07-22-2013, 10:00 AM

Pretty much all african americans who descended from slavery have the blood of slave owners or overseers in their blood. Slavery, whether it's race-based or conquest-based, means that those who are owners can do whatever they want to those who are slaves.

There's a reason why most african-americans are lighter-skinned than people from Africa.

**Elspeth** · 07-22-2013, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by noonwitch

Pretty much all african americans who descended from slavery have the blood of slave owners or overseers in their blood. Slavery, whether it's race-based or conquest-based, means that those who are owners can do whatever they want to those who are slaves.

There's a reason why most african-americans are lighter-skinned than people from Africa.

And most people like me, whose families immigrated to the US way after slavery was outlawed, still get blamed for being descendents of slave owners when we are no such thing. My ancestors were dirt poor for 400 years. If Spike Lee wants his 40 acres and a mule, he can ask Michelle Obama to provide it, since her ancestors WERE slave owners.

**noonwitch** · 07-22-2013, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Elspeth

And most people like me, whose families immigrated to the US way after slavery was outlawed, still get blamed for being descendents of slave owners when we are no such thing. My ancestors were dirt poor for 400 years. If Spike Lee wants his 40 acres and a mule, he can ask Michelle Obama to provide it, since her ancestors WERE slave owners.

Does ancestry via rape count? Cause having sex with human beings who have no choice in the matter is rape.

**Elspeth** · 07-22-2013, 01:36 PM

Originally Posted by noonwitch

Does ancestry via rape count? Cause having sex with human beings who have no choice in the matter is rape.

Ancestry is ancestry.

And the question of whether Michelle Obama should consider paying reparations out of her own pocket because of her ancestry (by rape or otherwise) is just a reductio ad absurdum on my part. It shows how absurd the reparations argument is, since, by ancestry, many blacks owe reparations to themselves. Because of this conundrum, Spike Lee and others want reparations from those of us who had no part in the history of African slavery. That is also absurd.

**Novaheart** · 07-22-2013, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by Elspeth

http://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/2012/09...nal+Paid+Media

Michelle Obama's DNA Test Show Slave Owner as Ancestor

First Lady Michelle Obama always suspected that she had white ancestors. But she had no idea who they were. With DNA testing and research, I was able to solve that mystery and finally identify the white forbears who had remained hidden in her family tree for more than a century.

All across the country, growing numbers of people are turning to DNA testing as a tool to help unlock the secrets of their roots, using companies such as ancestry.com, among others. When I started researching my new book, “American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama,’’ I pored over historical documents that I found in local archives, courthouses and libraries as well as records that I found online on ancestry.com and other state and local databases. But I knew that DNA testing would be the only way to unearth the truth.

I suspected that Mrs. Obama’s white ancestors belonged to the white Shields family that had owned her great-great-great grandmother, Melvinia Shields. So I persuaded several descendants of the black and white Shields to do DNA testing.

The results showed that the two families were related. The DNA testing indicated that Melvinia’s owner’s son was the likely father of Melvinia’s biracial child, Dolphus Shields. (Dolphus Shields is the first lady’s great-great grandfather.)

This was painful news for many of the Shields descendants. They knew that that Melvinia might have been raped and that their kinship originated during slavery, one of the darkest chapters of our history.

But last month, members of both sides of the family – black and white — put aside the pain of the past. They got together for the very first time in Rex, Georgia at a ceremony to commemorate Melvinia’s life. They swapped family stories, posed for photographs, exchanged phone numbers and had a meal together.

It was something to see.

David Applin, who is Melvinia’s great-grandson, said the reunion was “wonderful.” And Jarrod Shields, who is the great-great-great grandson of Melvinia’s owner, described it as a day “my family will never forget.”

How would they know that Melvinia was raped?