Michelle Obama’s original Irish ancestor has been traced and named as Andrew Shields, an Irish immigrant who fought in the American Revolution as a Georgia resident. Andrew Shields was Michelle Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and his family was slave owners. Michelle Obama’s great-great-great-grandmother Melvinia was a slave who had children by Charles Shields, grandson of Andrew Shields, the Times reveals. One of those children, Dolphus Shields, born in 1859, was Michelle Obama’s direct ancestor. It is not known in Ireland where the Shields came from but it was likely Northern Ireland as the family was Protestant and there was considerable Scots Irish emigration to the American south at the time. This article in The Times is adapted from “American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama” by Rachel L. Swarns, a new book due out this week. Swarns used DNA technology to prove the links. The book traces dozens of white relatives of Michelle Obama, none of whom knew of their connection through slavery to the First Lady. Most were shocked to learn the connection and hoped that the Shields-Melvinia relationship was not one of rape and coercion but love. "You really don’t like to face this kind of thing,” said Mrs. Joan Tribble, whose ancestors owned the First Lady’s great-great-great-grandmother. http://www.irishcentral.com/news/fi...r-roots-are-revealed-159341955-237511041.html
Much clumsier, but: Irish [Nazi|Socialist] [Muslim|Atheist] [Fascist|Commie]. One needs the extra arguments, depending on which criticism is being levelled at the moment.
Why stop at a hundred years or so. Why not go back a little further into her family tree. Might be interesting.