Sarah Palin's Ancestry: Solid New England

Vice Presidential Candidate Has Multiple Mayflower Lineages

Sep 4, 2008 Rosemary E. Bachelor

Sarah Palin is upper echelon when it comes to descent from the nation's colonial era founding families in New England.

The Republican vice presidential candidate is solidly rooted in ancestry that dates back to the 1600s in America. Some of those founding forebears are members of the Capen, Chipman, Curtis, Freeman, Gilbert, Gorham, Lothrop, Sears, Strong, Welles and Willard families.

Plymouth Colony Families

Palin’s Mayflower ancestors include William Brewster, John Howland, Stephen Hopkins, Joan (Hurst) Rogers, John and Elizabeth Tilley, and Richard Warren. She also descends from Thomas Prence, an early governor of Plymouth Colony, and her pedigree is laden with numerous pre-1650 immigrants from England.

President Bush, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin all descend from Samuel and Sarah (Soule) Hinckley. Their son, Thomas Hinckley (1618-1706), held several governmental posts in the Plymouth Colony and served as its last governor from 1681 to 1692. Palin is also a 12th cousin of John McCain and descends from Simon Newcomb of Edgarton, MA and Lebanon, CT, as do both Bush presidents.

Palin's Multiple Royal Ancestry

Palin, Obama and McCain all claim William 1, King of Scots, as an ancestor. Her descent in this Carolingian line is via ancestor Edmond Hawes (1612-1693) of Yarmouth, MA, who held many local offices. She also descends from Henry III of England by way of ancestor Edward Raynsford, who died in 1680 in Boston. He is alleged to be a Plantagenet descendant of Charlemagne.

One of her more interesting ancestors is the Rev. John Lathrop/Lothrop, a 1605 Cambridge University graduate who was ordained an Anglican priest in England, but joined the dissenters, heading a secret congregation in London. After he was caught and imprisoned, he was fortunate enough to be released on the condition that he and his family immediately leave for America. He may have gotten off lucky because he came from a family with a noble background. His grandfather had married into the Aston family, whose pedigree includes Charlemagne and other European monarchs.

Presidents, a Traitor and Politicians

Sarah Palin shares ancestor John Lathrop with presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt and both Bush presidents. Lathrop descendants have earned fame in many ways. In addition to Revolutionary War traitor Benedict Arnold, the list includes Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon religion, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Benjamin Spock, financier John Pierpoint Morgan and the original fuller brush man, Alfred Fuller.

Tumbling out of the list of politicians who descend from Lathrop are Adlai Stevenson, John Foster Dulles, Thomas Dewey and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

Companion articles give the ancestry of John McCain , Barack Obama. and Joe Biden.

SOURCES:

Roberts, Gary Boyd, Genealogies of Mayflower Families from The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 2 (Baltimore, 1985)

Faris, David, The Plantagenet Ancestry of Seventeenth-Century American Colonists, second edition, New England Historic Genealogical Society (1999: Boston)

Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals/Nithard's Histories, University of Michigan Press (1972: Ann Arbor)

The copyright of the article Sarah Palin's Ancestry: Solid New England in Genealogy is owned by Rosemary E. Bachelor. Permission to republish Sarah Palin's Ancestry: Solid New England in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.