American Blue Bloods??

This isn't a trick question or attempt at getting a rise out of sensitive American republicans. For the record I am a UK anti-royalist subject.


I am just curious about US history, I recently read that G Washington was descended from British aristocracy, and also reports that several US political families have "blue blood" including, Bush (Brit/German), Clintons (Brit/Irish), Kennedy’s(Brit/Irish). Is there much truth in this and how many American presidents have ties back to the old world royal families?

American Blue Bloods??
You might find the following short history lesson interesting about The United States Presidents that were not natural-born U.S. citizens. They were eligible to serve, though, because they were citizens at the time the Constitution was adopted.





It was Martin Van Buren, born December 5, 1782, who was the first President born after the Declaration of Independence and was thus arguably the first natural-born U.S. citizen (rather than a British subject) to become President. A Dutch-American, he was also the first President not of Anglo-Celtic origin. And, John Tyler (b. March 29, 1790) was the first President born after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.





The United States Presidents that were not natural-born U.S. citizens were:





1. George Washington served as President from 1789 to 1797. He was born of a wealthy family with firm roots in the Old Country on February 22, 1732 (February 11, 1731, O.S.), the first son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington, on the family estate (later known as Wakefield) in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Because of his central and critical role in the founding of the United States, Washington is referred to as father of the nation. He died December 14, 1799.





2. John Adams served as President from 1797 to 1801. He was born the eldest of three brothers on October 30, 1735 (October 19 by the Old Style, Julian calendar), in Braintree, Massachusetts, though in an area which became part of Quincy, Massachusetts in 1792. His birthplace is now part of Adams National Historical Park. His father, a farmer, also named John (1690-1761), was a fourth-generation descendant of Henry Adams, who immigrated from Barton St. David, Somerset, England, to Massachusetts Bay Colony in about 1636. His mother was Susanna Boylston Adams.[2]. Young Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755 and, for a time, taught school in Worcester and studied law in the office of James Putnam. In 1761, he was admitted to the bar. From an early age, he developed the habit of writing descriptions of events and impressions of men.





3 Thomas Jefferson served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was born on April 13, 1743 (Gregorian N.S) into a prosperous Virginia family, the third of ten children. His mother was Jane Randolph, daughter of Isham Randolph, and a cousin of Peyton Randolph. Jefferson's father was Peter Jefferson, a planter and surveyor who owned plantations in Albemarle County (Shadwell, then Edge Hill, Virginia.). In 1760 Jefferson entered the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg at the age of 16; he studied there for two years, graduating with highest honors in 1762. He was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) and the failed Embargo Act of 1807. Jefferson achieved distinction as an horticulturist, architect, archaeologist, paleontologist, author, inventor, and the founder of the University of Virginia, among other roles. He died July 4, 1826.





4. James Madison served as President from 1809 to 1817. Madison has been called America's first graduate student; perhaps more accurately "Princeton's first graduate student." At 5 feet, 4 inches in height (163 cm) and 100 pounds (45 kg), Madison was the nation’s shortest and lightest president.


Madison's health was never good. He himself was certain he was epileptic, though his seizure are now considered by medical historians to have been brought about by stress. On September 14, 1794, Madison married Dolley Payne Todd, who cut as attractive and vivacious a figure as he did a sickly and anti-social one. Dolley is largely credited with inventing the role of First Lady as political ally and adviser to the president. When Madison left office in 1817, he retired to Montpelier, his tobacco plantation in Virginia; it was not far from Jefferson's plantation Monticello. Madison was 63 years old; Dolley, who thought they would finally have a chance to travel to Paris, was 49. Such was not to be the case. As with both Washington and Jefferson, Madison left the presidency a poorer man than when he entered, due in no small part to the steady financial collapse of his plantation.





5. James Monroe served as President from 1817 to 1825. He was born on April 28, 1758 and died July 4, 1831, was the fifth President of the United States, and the fourth Virginian to hold the office. Monroe was the third president to die on July 4.


Monroe was (arguably) the last president to have fought in the Revolutionary War, although Andrew Jackson served as a 13-year-old courier in the Continental Army and was taken as a prisoner of war by the British. Monroe was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on April 28, 1758, the son of a modest planter. He entered the College of William and Mary in July 1774, but, caught up by the fervor of the revolutionary spirit, he enlisted in the Third Virginia Regiment in the spring of 1776. As a lieutenant he saw action in the battles in New York preceding Washington's retreat into New Jersey, and he distinguished himself in a vanguard action at Trenton, where he was seriously wounded. For two years he served as an aide with the rank of colonel to Gen. William Alexander (Lord Stirling). He was present during the winter of Valley Forge (1777-1778) and participated in the Battle of Monmouth. In 1789, now a married man, he settled in Albemarle County to be close to Jefferson. Monroe's wife, the former Elizabeth Kortright of New York, was regarded as one of the great beauties of the day. Reserved and rather cold in her manner, she was to bring to the White House a formality not always relished by Washingtonians. Here in Albemarle their two daughters, Eliza and Maria Hester, were born. A son died in infancy.





6. John Quincy Adams served as President from 1825 to 1829 and took the Oath of Office on a book of laws, instead of the more traditional Bible. His party affiliations were Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Whig. Adams was the son of U.S. President John Adams, and Abigail Adams. He is most famous as a diplomat involved in many international negotiations, and for formulating the Monroe Doctrine. Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts in a part of town which eventually became Quincy. The John Quincy Adams birthplace, now part of Adams National Historical Park, is open to the public, as is the nearby Abigail Adams Cairn that marks the site from which Adams witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill as a seven-year-old boy. Much of Adams' youth was spent overseas accompanying his father, who served as an American envoy to France from 1778 until 1779 and to the Netherlands in 1780. During this period, he acquired his early education at institutions such as the University of Leiden. For nearly two years, he accompanied Francis Dana on a mission to St. Petersburg, Russia, to gain recognition to the new republic. He also spent time in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.





During these years overseas, Adams gained a mastery of French, Dutch and a familiarity with German and other European languages. After returning to America, he had become far more worldly and well-travelled then most of his countrymen even twice his age. He entered Harvard College and graduated in 1787. According to a study by psychologist Keith Simonton, Adams has the highest estimated IQ of any US president. He was then admitted to the bar and began practicing law in Boston. He has descendants in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas of the last name Fryer.





7. Andrew Jackson served as President from 1829 to 1837. He was born March 15, 1767 and died June 8, 1845). He was also military governor of Florida (1821), commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans (1815), a founder of the modern Democratic Party, and the eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy. Nicknamed "Old Hickory" because he was renowned for his toughness, Jackson was the first President primarily associated with the frontier (although born in South Carolina, he based his career in Tennessee). Jackson was born in a backwoods settlement to Presbyterian Scots-Irish immigrants Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson in Lancaster County, South Carolina, on March 15, 1767. He was the youngest of three brothers and was born just weeks after his father's death. Both North Carolina and South Carolina have claimed Jackson as a "native son," because the community straddled the state line. Jackson himself always stated that he was born in a cabin on the South Carolina side. He received a sporadic education. At age thirteen, during the American Revolutionary War, he joined a local regiment as a courier and Andrew and his brother Robert Jackson were taken as prisoners, Jackson was the only U.S. president to be a prisoner of war. Andrew Jackson was the first president to be born in a log cabin. He also was the first president to ride a railroad train while in office. Jackson was the last U.S. President to have been a veteran of the American Revolution.





8. Martin Van Buren served as President from 1837 to1841 and on the expiration of his term, Van Buren retired to his estate, Lindenwald in Kinderhook . He was nicknamed Old Kinderhook among other names such as Martin Van Ruin, Log Cabin Democrat and The Little Magician. He was also known as "The Red Fox of Kinderhook" because of his bright red hair and slyness. During Van Buren's presidential campaign of 1836 supporters popularized his nickname "Old Kinderhook," which was abbreviated as "OK." "OK Clubs" were set up. Through this the expression "OK" was popularized. He was born on December 5, 1782 and died July 24, 1862. He was a key organizer of the Democratic Party, and the first president who was not of English, Irish, or Scottish descent. He is also the only president not to have spoken English as his first language, but rather grew up speaking Dutch. Van Buren was born in the village of Kinderhook, New York, approximately 25 miles south of Albany, the state capital, as the third of five children. His great-great-great-great-grandfather Cornelis had come to the New World in 1631 from the Netherlands. His father was Abraham Van Buren (February 17, 1737–April 8, 1817), a farmer and popular tavern-master. His mother was Maria Goes Hoes (February 27, 1743–February 16, 1817), a widow who had three sons from a previous relationship. Van Buren was the first President born after the signing of the Declaration of Independence (1782), thus technically making him the first true American President, the first seven Presidents being born British subjects. Van Buren was educated at the common schools and at Kinderhook Academy. In 1796, he began the study of law, completing his preparation in 1802 in New York City, where he studied under William Peter van Ness. In 1803, he was admitted to the bar and continued an active and successful practice for 26 years. His practice made him wealthy and paved the way for his entrance into politics. On February 21, 1807, he married Hannah Hoes, a maternal cousin.








9. William Henry Harrison took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, an extremely cold and windy day, without his overcoat and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history. At 8,445 words, it took nearly two hours to read (even after his friend and fellow Whig, Daniel Webster, had edited it for length). He then rode through the streets in the inaugural parade, and later caught a cold, which then developed into pneumonia and pleurisy. (According to the prevailing medical misconception of the times, it was believed that his illness was caused by the bad weather, when, in fact, he was likely a victim of the virus that causes the common cold, exacerbated by the drastic pressures of his changing circumstances.) His doctors tried everything to cure him, applying opium, castor oil, Virginia snakeweed, and even actual snakes. But the treatments only made Harrison worse and he went into delirium. He died a month later, at 12:30 a.m., on April 4, 1841, of right lower lobe pneumonia, jaundice, and overwhelming septicemia, becoming the first American president to die in office. His last words were "Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." Harrison served the shortest term of any American president: only 30 days, 11 hours and 30 minutes, the briefest presidency in the history of the office. He was also the first U.S. president to die while in office. His death threw the country into a constitutional crisis. He served as the first Governor of the Indiana Territory and later as a U.S. Representative and Senator from Ohio. Harrison first gained national fame as a war hero, defeating American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 and earning the nickname "Tippecanoe" (or "Old Tippecanoe"). As a general in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable contribution was a victory at the Battle of the Thames, which brought the war in his region to a successful conclusion. When Harrison took office in 1841 at the age of 68, he was the oldest man to become President; a record that stood for 140 years, until Ronald Reagan became President in 1981 at the age of 69. William Henry Harrison, born February 9, 1773 in British colonial territory, was the last president to be born a British subject. Harrison was born into a prominent political family at the Berkeley Plantation in Charles City County Virginia, the youngest of the seven children of Benjamin Harrison V and Elizabeth Basset. His father was a Virginia planter who served as a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774–1777), signed the Declaration of Independence (1776), and was Governor of Virginia (1781-1784). William Henry Harrison's brother, Carter Bassett Harrison, later became a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Virginia. Harrison's father-in-law was Congressman John Cleves Symmes. His stepmother-in-law was the daughter of New Jersey Governor William Livingston. Harrison was the first cousin of Burwell Bassett on his mother's side. Harrison's son, John Scott Harrison, was also elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio from 1853 to 1857. Harrison's grandson, Benjamin Harrison of Ohio, became the 23rd president in 1889, making them the only grandparent-grandchild pair of presidents to date. Harrison was a tall man, and in Congress he was referred to by fellow westerners as a Buckeye, as were other tall pioneers on the Ohio frontier, as a term of endearment in respect of the Buckeye chestnut tree.
Reply:and your point is??????????????


Early Americans were from UK


Don't they teach history in the UK??????????
Reply:According to historical researches, it is true.
Reply:Since America started as an English Colony I'm sure most of the early poliltical leaders had close ties to the English aristocracy. It isn't anything that Americans today think much about though. One of the things that I should point out...the reason America was so successful was that anyone could have the opportunities to be rich and powerful, politically and financially not just bhe "blue bloods". BTW the Kennedy's were not "blue bloods" JFK's Great Grandfather was an irish immigrant fleeing the famine in Ireland in the mid 1840's. his Grandfather was a prominant businessman and ward boss in Boston, and the family empire was born.
Reply:Trust me Sir there is no such thing as blue Blood .This is a way that they invented to separate themselves from the poor and always keep them selve in a position of power.No where the blue blood was more prominent and imposing than in India in form of Nawabs,Maharajahs and Princes at one time they will wait for the servant for putting their shoes on .I have seen the same people driving TONGAS the Horse carts and princesses working as call girls .Where did the Blue Blood Go?
Reply:Sounds like Marxist propaganda to me
Reply:I believe most of the earlier ones had some ties to royalty. It may not be at the King level but baron or yoeman or something like that. America is a great melting pot and over the centuries people are sufficiently mixed that many of us have some royal in us. I for example have a touch of German royalty. My great,great grandfather was one Baron Johann Gephart Von Hagenlacher of Wurtemburg. I am just an ordinary person.





We actually took care of the blue blood situation on July 4, 1776. And we haven't looked back.

Crooked Teeth