President Obama is a great-great-grandson of Nancy Ann Childress Osburn Armour Turner, who was a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS).
President Obama’s Mormon Ancestor
Genealogical research reveals that the much-married Nancy Ann Childress (1848-1924) is President Barack Obama’s Mormon ancestor. She married 1) James Osburn in 1868, 2) George W. Armour (ca. 1849-1889) in 1871, and 3) James T. Turner who had previously married Nancy’s sister, Sarah Catharine. Nancy and James were wed in 1897.
Nancy was born in Clark County, Missouri, the daughter of John Milton and Nancy (Conyers) Childress. (In some records the surname is spelled Childers.) She died in St. Mary’s Township, Hancock Co., Illinois. Both of her parents had been born in Kentucky. Her three marriages all took place in Lewis, County, Missouri and there is no indication that any of them were bigamous.
Obama Ancestor Joins RLDS Church
Nancy joined the RLDS Church after the death of her second husband. In February of 1877, James and Sarah Turner – Nancy’s third husband and her sister – had became members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and both of them remained true to their conviction of the gospel restored by Joseph Smith to the end of their lives. Sarah’s obituary notes that “she has been one of [that church’s] most active and valued members” in the family’s hometown at Deloit, Iowa. James’s obituary identifies him as a teacher, traveling elder, and “president and pastor” of the RLDS branch at Deloit.
When James married Nancy in 1897, she too joined the RLDS, and remained a member of that church until her death.
The Missouri Latter Day Saints
The RLDS, known as the Community of Christ since 2001, is headquartered in Independence, Missouri. It separated from the main LDS church in 1860 over doctrinal differences. Because this denomination regards itself as a reorganization of the church founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith Jr. and believes his son, Joseph Smith III, to have been his legitimate successor, it is generally considered part of the early Latter Day Saints movement.
The nucleus of the original Mormons moved from New York State to Missouri, which was to be their “Zion”, or “heaven on earth." They were not welcomed by other settlers so moved on to Nauvoo, Illinois. The RLDS faction remained in the Midwest and other members of the Latter Day Saints continued west to Utah, where they established their headquarters in Salt Lake City. The present Community of Christ is not a branch of today’s Latter Day Saints, nor has it had any connection with them since 1860.
Some believe it is incorrect to call members of the former RLDS Mormons because they no longer adhere to the book of Mormon.
President Obama’s Line of Descent
Barack Obama descends from George W. Armour and the former Nancy Chilress through their son, Harry Ellington Armour (1874-1953) and his wife, the former Gabriella Clark (1876-1966), and granddaughter, Ruth Lucille Armour (1900-1926), who married Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham (1894-1970), and lived in Kansas.
Their son, Stanley Armour Dunham (1918-1992), married Madalyn Lee Payne (1922-2008). They moved to Hawaii and are the maternal grandparents who helped raise Barack.
President Obama also shares ancestry with Gordon Bitner Hinckley (1910-2008), who was born in Salt Lake Citty and became president of the Mormon church. On his 94th birthday Hinckley received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush. Hinckley, Bush and Obama all descend from Colonial Gov. Thomas Hinckley (1619-1706) who married Mary Richards.
Companion articles discuss President Obama’s Revolutionary War ancestors and his French ancestry.
Sources:
Reitwiesner, William A., “Ancestry of Barack Obama”; information from his website retrieved Oct. 4, 2010.
Gordon Hinckley obituary, Jan. 29, 2008, The Times (London, England)
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