THE NATION / TOP OF THE TICKET
As President Obama visited Dresden with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, a genealogical study in Utah reported that the first African American president in U.S. history is actually German.
Well, partly.
Provo-based Ancestry.com has found that Obama’s lineage on his mother’s side can be traced to Germany.
Using online sources and microfilm from the Family History Library owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, genealogists found a document that went back to the president’s eighth great-grandfather, Conrad Wolflin, who was mayor of Orsingen, Germany, for 30 years.
Ancestry.comObama’s sixth great-grandfather, Johann Conrad Wolflin, was born on Jan. 29, 1729, in Besigheim, Wuerttemberg, Germany, and in 1750 resettled in Pennsylvania, changing his name to Wolfley.
Told of the Obama connection, officials in Besigheim -- tourist dollars dancing in their heads -- jumped for joy.
If that were not enough to make the president feel welcome, relatives of survivors of Buchenwald concentration camp are also calling Obama family.
It seems the president’s great-uncle, also on his mother’s side, Charles Payne, 84, helped liberate a sub-camp there when he was a U.S. infantryman fighting in World War II.
“The survivors see President Obama almost like a grandson of theirs,” Volker Knigge, director of the Buchenwald Memorial, told CNN. “The president is related to one of the brave men who came here and saw the Nazi horror firsthand.”
A shake-up in the East Wing
told CNNWhile the nation was watching the world watch President Obama speak and tour in Cairo, news came out of a top-level shake-up in First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House staff.
Out as chief of staff after less than five months is Jackie Norris, who is to become a senior advisor at the Corporation for National and Community Service. Susan Sher replaces her.
To make things look all smooth and friendly-like, all three women issued boiler-plate statements of their longtime friendship and deep commitments.
Norris, for example, was quoted as saying: “I am grateful to President and Mrs. Obama for the opportunities and friendship they have given me over the last few years, and I am looking forward to becoming an integral part of this administration’s efforts to advance the cause of national and community service.”
told CNNtold CNN--
Neuman writes for The Times.
Top of the Ticket, The Times’ blog on national politics (https://https: www.latimes.com/ticket “> www.latimes.com/ticket ), is a blend of commentary, analysis and news. These are selections from the last week.
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