President Barack Obama's English relatives whose lives are a world apart from the White House
One is the first black president of the most powerful country in the world, the other is a retired teacher from a sleepy village in central England. But according to genealogists these two very different men are related.
Charles Blossom, a former lecturer in automotive engineering at Loughborough University, discovered on Saturday that he is a distant cousin of President Barack Obama.
Genealogists have traced the family roots of the 44th US President back to a seventeenth-century Pilgrim settler who emigrated from England to America as one of the founding fathers of the colony of Plymouth, Massachusettes.
They found that President Obama is the 13th-generation descendant of Deacon Thomas Blossom, who was born in the village of Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, around 1580.
Research by Charles Blossom, 63, and his close family had already revealed that they, too, are related to Thomas Blossom.
After being told of the link between their ancestor and the new President, Mr Blossom, from Wolton on the Wolds, Leicestershire, declared himself "astonished".
"I guess it makes us distant cousins," said Mr Blossom.
"We have been looking at our family history quite recently after we found some old documents and diaries. We certainly have ancestors that went to America and one was called Thomas Blossom.
He was on board a ship which took some of the first Pilgrims to America."
Experts at the New England Historical Genealogical Society traced the link between President Obama, through his white mother, Ann Dunham, to the Pilgrim forefathers.
The President, who is half Kenyan and was born in Hawaii, is the 12th-generation grandchild of Thomas Blossom.
The discovery has sparked bickering between villages in Cambridgeshire about who can lay claim to President Obama's English roots.
Thomas Blossom was one of seven children of Peter and Annabel Blossom from Great Shelford, Cambs. After his birth the family moved to Stapleford in around 1582, where Peter is described as a "husbandman", or small farmer, in records.
In 1605, at the age of 25, Thomas married Anne Elsdon in Cambridge.
The couple fled to the Dutch city of Leiden to escape religious persecution in England along with other exiles known as the Pilgrims. During their time there the couple buried three children who died at a young age.
They first attempted to sail to the New World in 1620 on board the Speedwell, a sister ship of the Mayflower. But while the Mayflower carried America's founding fathers across the Atlantic, the Speedwell developed a leak and had to turn back.
The original Mayflower was dismantled for scrap in 1623, but a second ship of the same name eventually took Thomas Blossom and his family to America at their second attempt in 1629.
Thomas Blossom became an important member of the Pilgrim community as the first Deacon of the Church of Plymouth, but died in 1633 from an infectious fever, probably influenza.
After his death, he left behind a daughter Elizabeth, who was nine when the family set sail, and two sons, Thomas and Peter. President Obama is descended from Elizabeth.
Charles Blossom and his family believe they could be descended from one of Thomas Blossom's brothers who chose to stay in England rather than emigrate.
"It is amazing – I've found fame at last," joked Mr Blossom. "I'm just a humble lad. While Blossom is a nice name, it isn't a brilliant surname for a man, I've found."
Religion appears to have been a strong sentiment running through the Blossom family. Charles Blossom's great great grandfather, also called Thomas Blossom, spent 23 years as an evangelist in the south Pacific with the London Missionary Society.
Matthew Blossom, a history teacher at Marlborough College and nephew of Charles Blossom, who has studied some of his family's history, said: "As far as we know, we are the only Blossom family left in England who are related to Thomas Blossom who was on board the Speedwell.
"It must have been one hell of an undertaking to set off across the Atlantic in a rather cramped boat. Although we haven't been able to establish the complete line back yet, we are fairly sure we are related to him."
Christopher Child, of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, said he was now keen to trace any relatives of Thomas Blossom who may still be living in Britain. He has found that the Pilgrim was also a direct ancestor of two other US presidents – George Bush and his son George W Bush.
President Obama has previously joked about his distant links to the Bushes.
He has also been found to have family lines to former Vice President Dick Cheney; Presidents James Madison, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter; and 19th-century cowboy Wild Bill Hickok.
Mr Child said the extent of the inter-relationships was not surprising given the small colonial population that went on to spread throughout much of the United States.
Barbara Blossom, from Buckhurst Hill in Essex, also believes she could be related to the current president.
She said: "I have an idea that we might be related. We can't trace continually very far back, but we can trace ourselves to Thomas Blossom."
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