Reading...
On pages 138-139 we read that on July 17, 1989 President George Bush and his wife First Lady Barbara Bush went to Leiden, in the Netherlands. It was the first visit by a president of the United States to the country. President Bush spoke and learned from the mayor that there were two Bush family ancestors who had sailed on the Mayflower to America in 1620 who came from Leiden! They were Francis Cooke, a signer of the Mayflower Compact and Hester De La Noye, who had a daughter named Jane who was Bush's "grandmother" 11 generations back. The mayor also announced that Hesters' sister Marie had a child named Philippe,whose grandchild - seven times removed - was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "Two sisters, two presidents," Mayor Goekoop said.
This book is published by Thomas Dunne Books - St Martin's Press and is copyright 2006 by the author, Pamela Kilian. The excerpt above is slightly altered.
Barbara Bush's genealogical relationship to various French aristocrats has been explored in other publications. Is it true that that most elected presidents have more "royal" blood than the candidates they beat?
