A woman conducting a family ancestry search has discovered that she is the half-sister to television talk show host Oprah Winfrey. The woman, whose surname has been kept secret to protect her privacy, had been searching for her birth mother who had given her up for adoption in 1963. The trail began in Mississippi and ended up in Chicago, where she finally met with her long lost sibling on Thanksgiving Day last year. Recently she appeared on Oprah’s show, where the two held hands throughout and demonstrated the true rewards of conducting a family ancestry search.

(more…)

Many of us begin our genealogical quest after either:

• hearing something exciting about one of our ancestors, or
• if we have the same surname as someone famous – just to see if we might be related.

As we begin our search for our infidel ancestor or our wealthy relative, it is possible to come across some information that we rather wouldn’t have. This could be an ancestor being involved in criminal behaviour; murder, theft, fraud, etc, or something like illegitimacy, adoption or infidelity.

(more…)

In Part I, I examined the claim that Tiger’s father, Earl WOODS, is one-quarter Native American, one-quarter Chinese and half black.

The black is fairly easy to establish because as far back as I can go on Earl’s father’s ancestry, the family is listed as black (I am using black as this was the terminology on the records of the time). I realize there is the “one drop rule” that means any black in your ancestry no matter how far back means you are black. That can skew the results, but there is no evidence of any other ethnicity to in the WOODS line back from Earl’s father than black (or Negro as was used on the 1930 United States Federal Census).

Perhaps, if we could go further back in the WOODS line, we might find different ancestry, but it is doubtful there would be enough to establish the claim of one-quarter Native American and one quarter Chinese on the basis of Earl WOODS’ paternal line. It is said that Miles, Earl’s father, “was black, clearly of African ancestry” (telegraph.co.uk, 05 May 2006) and that is where I have to leave this line for now.

Perhaps we will do better with Earl’s maternal line. His mother was Maud(e) Ellen CARTER, who married his father Miles WOODS (July 1919 according to William Addams Reitwiesner who does not give a primary source for this information). Miles was a widowed prior to the 1910 census. His first wife was Viola and they had at least four children together (sources: 1905 Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925 and 1910 United States Federal Census).
(more…)

Tiger WOODS claims to be Cablinasian: Ca for Caucasian, Bl for Black, In for (American) Indian and the rest for Asian. His father is said to be one-quarter Native American, one-quarter Chinese and half black. Claims are that Tiger’s mother is half Thai, a quarter Chinese and a quarter Dutch. This [if true] makes WOODS himself half Asian (one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Thai), one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American and one-eighth Dutch. (“Earning his stripes.” AsianWeek. 1996-10-11. Retrieved 2010-01-15.)

These claims might be intriguing and even give him an air of mystery, but are they true? One would hate to doubt what a person claims as ethnic make-up, but I have not found any proof to substantiate some of these claims and, in fact, evidence seems to refute some.
(more…)

When researching your ancestors, go further than just the facts of marriages, births, deaths, and really dig deep, until you find out just who these people were. You might unearth some shocking stories and it’s those stories that make genealogy thrilling. Like this story about the Bush family.

This story has been circulating for a few years now, ever since UK newspaper the Guardian published the shocking report, “How Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power” The report revealed rumors of links between the Bush family and Nazi war criminals. The article is long and detailed and gives proof of George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush and his maternal great grandfather George Herbert Walker were aiding and abetting Nazis.

(more…)