I'm looking over President Obama's genealogy, which was linked to in a comment under Deep Harm's excellent diary entry and provides this information about two of Obama's great4-grandparents
126 Samuel Thompson Allred, b. Overton Co., Tenn., 6 Oct. 1809, d. Carroll Co., Ark., 4 Nov. 1857
m. ... [ca. 1828]
127 Anna Bunch, b. Overton Co., Tenn., 27 March 1814, d. Osage, Newton Co., Ark., 21 June 1893
Anna Bunch, the daughter of Nathaniel Bunch and Sarah Wade Ray, provides a very interesting set of circumstances to President Obama's bloodline. Both the Bunch and Ray surnames are indicative of descendency from a population of somewhat mysterious origin. Throughout the American South, at the fringes of what was once within the sphere of Spanish colonial influence, there are pockets of dark-skinned persons which claim "Portuguese" ancestry, but whose story is much more interesting than that...
Read More