Bush and Kerry

 

This is an article that appeared in our local evening newspaper and may be of interest to all my American friends.

BUSH AND KERRY ARE SONS OF WICKFORD!

If you've ever wondered what the mysterious W in George W. Bush's name stands for, consider this possibility: Wickford.

All right, then, it might not be (it is, in fact, Walker) - but the American President does have some surprising connections to the south Essex town. (Wickford is about ten miles from where I live).

And it gets better, it turns out his presidential election rival, Senator John Kerry, is a distant relative of his and also has ancestral ties to Essex.

Both family trees reveal links to a gentry family in Wickford dating back to the 17th century.

Ground-breaking research by an American genealogist, Gary Boyd Roberts, has revealed the pair, who are currently fighting the US election are ninth cousins, twice removed.

Their common ancestor was a member of the minor gentry called Edmund Reade, who was born and died in Wickford.

Public records reveal that Edmund Reade was born in 1563 and died in 1623 after fathering two sons who are both believed to have died young, and two daughters.

After his death, his daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, sailed to New England with their mother in the 1630's.

Both married into powerful families, Winthrop and Lake, who eventually produced the two presidential candidates.

Sarah Dickie, an archivist at Essex Records Office, said the records of the Reade family made his relationship to the two candidates possible.

She said "The facts do look to add up.  Of course, there are bits and pieces that don't match, but that could be due to lots of reasons.

In a book we published, which looks at the Essex immigration to the US in the 17th century, we have a piece about Elizabeth Reade, daughter of Edmund Reade, who married John Winthrop in 1635."

Mr. Roberts, speaking from Massachusetts, said the results of his research were not entirely surprising.  He said "News that Bush and Kerry are related does not cause a stir in this country."

Mr. Kerry's father's family were Jews from the Austro-Hungarian empire who changed their name from Kohn to Kerry before emigrating to America in 1904.

Mr. Bush son of a former president and grandson of a senator, can trace his family to the Mayflower immigrants and to some of the oldest families in the country.

The Wickford connection is the closest bloodline linking the candidates, but they have seven other common ancestors.

HOW THEY ARE RELATED

George Bush and John Kerry are officially ninth cousins, twice removed.  This means they share the same two great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents and their ancestors.

*Taken from the Echo, Wednesday 22nd September and written by Kate McGrath*