Candidates Family History Makes News This Weekend

This past weekend Al Sharpton learned that he might be related to the late segregationists and Senator, Strom Thurmond. A Daily News reporter was getting his own family tree done, and offered to do Al Sharpton’s for him. Sharpton, said, “Go for it.” Genealogists from Ancestry.com found out that Sharpton’s great-grandfather Coleman Sharpton was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond’s great-great-grandfather. Now, to determine if they are related by blood Sharpton has decided to do a DNA test. Sharpton said he only met Thurmond once through a mutual friend James Brown, and he didn’t like it very much because he knew of Thurmonds history with segregationists.
Not to be outdone the Republicans had their own candidate with an interesting family history. Mitt Romney’s great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12. Polygamy used to be an important part of the Mormon faith, but the United States outlawed it in the 1860’s and the Mormon church banned it in the 1890’s. Romney’s great-grandfather married his fifth in 1897, after both these dates. Many Mormon’s moved to Mexico, including the Romneys to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. The Romney’s did not move back into the United States until 1912. Mitt Romney himself is not a polygamist, and has been married to one wife for over 30 years.
Alan Cosgrove