Our Cousin Obama

My earliest documented Puritan ancestor, Thomas Blossom, was a farmer from a Cambridgeshire village called Great Shelford. He was presumably not a well-educated man, though some—including the amateur genealogists in my family--have tried to argue that his elegant letters to William Bradford prove him to be a Cambridge graduate. (Meaning what, exactly?  That Oxford didn't teach a course on etiquette?)

Blossom fled with a group of other Pilgrims to Holland.  He and his family then tried to sail to Plymouth on the Speedwell, the Mayflower companion ship you never read about in school... because it leaked, and had to turn back.  Twice.  Blossom has enjoyed a surge in Google search rankings of late, thanks to revelations that Barack Obama is a descendant. Upon learning this I sent out emails with the subject line “Our Cousin Obama” to various bemused family members.

I sent no emails advertising the fact that George W. Bush is also our cousin, through the same line. Even Republicans won’t claim him anymore.  (Interestingly, we all share kinship through Blossom with Wild Bill Hickok, another rootin’ tootin’ cowboy, as well.)