OBAMA AND THE BELLS

OBAMA AND THE BELLS

In connection with Barrack Obama’s primary season sojourn abroad and mass rally in Germany, genealogists got busy. They traced his ancestry to a certain Peter Gutknecht, a German-speaking farmer who emigrated to Pennsylvania from the Alsace region in 1743. So did the Bells, probably sometime between 1750 and 1755. If only he had known when Hillary used her Pennsylvania connection to out maneuver him in that particular primary!
So are the Bells and Obama related through Peter Gutknecht? Probably, but not close enough to get excited about. Think about the math and you will see why. Dick and Doris had five children. Dick’s parents had 5 (excluding 6 step-siblings and 1 half brother), and Doris’ parents had four. In the next preceding generation, Elizabeth Guelff came from a family of 14, with 9 surviving to adulthood and having children. Dudley Bell came from a family of five children (four living to adulthood), but his parents, Albert Bell and Elizabeth Metzger came from families of 5 and 11 respectively. The Metzgers were Pennsylvania Dutch, i.e. their ancestors (Repogles, Neffs, Koernig and Hummels) came from a German-speaking region before they emmigrated to Pennsylvania and northwestern Maryland. In all cases this region happened to be along the lower Rhine River, i.e. Alsace. Albert Bell was the son of Samuel Bell and Elizabeth Smith, who moved to Hagerstown, Wayne County, Indiana from the Hagerstown area of Washington County, Maryland. In the next Bell generation -- Frederick Bell and Susanna Emerick 11 children blessed their marriage (in addition to 3 from Frederick first marriage). This series of “begats” in reverse gets us to the founding Bell generations -- Peter Bell and Elizabeth Vogeler. Friederich Vogeler, Elizabeth’s father, also probably came from the Rhineland. The Emerick, Repogle, Koernig lines? All Pennsylvania Dutch and the typical family size of surviving children in the 5 to 10 range.
From this point back, assuming child-producing families in accordance with the norm, we are looking at 5 to 10 children per generation that survive and have children of their own. Given the math, and assuming the math is the same for Obama ancestors, it would be hard not to find a link with Peter Gutknecht. Not surprisingly, the gene pool includes such other notables as the ancestors of Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Herbert Hoover. All three family names connect at some attenuated point with the Bells and the families that they married into.
Some who do family histories become obsessed with these tangential connections to historical figures. Many feel that such provenance gives rise to some kind of bragging rights. From my point of view, the ordinary people are far more interesting, and in certain respects, far more heroic. After all, they were the ones called upon, more often than not, to make the heavy sacrifices. Those who history remembers are the survivors and especially those who leave behind a trove of written records. Presidential candidates (successful and not) fit this category.
On a second note, much in the campaign was about identity politics – more about who is like us than who is likely to lead well. That is the politics of division, unfortunately practiced with a vengeance by both political parties. At the same time both candidates postured as uniters. In our history, politicians who have transcended political division have been quite rare. Uniquely, George Washington remained above the fray for his entire presidency. Lincoln nearly got to that point (but only for half of the divided country) near the end of his life after leading us into and through the most violently divisive time in our history. No others, in my opinion, have a legitimate claim to such a mantle. Notwithstanding the rhetoric, it will be extraordinarily difficult for anyone to make it a list of three.
We know that Obama finds inspiration in the words and actions of Lincoln. Indeed, Obama may be a match for Lincoln as a wordsmith and quite likely will surpass him as an orator. Will time and press of events allow a great leader to emerge and withstand the inexorable erosion of the political process? Will he continue to draw support from all of his genealogically connected groups?
A final historical note on identity politics: Benjamin Franklin had a decisively negative view of German speaking immigrants. In part, his prejudice arose from some frustration in raising troops to protect the Pennsylvania frontier during the French and Indian War from a population that included a large number of Quaker (and other sects) with firm pacifist beliefs. Washington had a different point of view, serving under Colonel Bouquet (German Swiss) in a highly successful military operation consisting mostly of German speaking soldiers that, among other things, rescued Washington’s military reputation from a stain that it received in a failed prior expedition under the command of General Braddock. In the Revolutionary War, Washington’s personal security and honor guard consisted entirely of Germans. He did not entirely trust the English speaking population.