By Elvis Tah
The Kenyan Obamas
The Obamas are members of the Luo, Kenya's third-largest ethnic group. The family is largely concentrated in the western province of Nyanza.
Obama Jr's father had six other sons and a daughter.
Malik Obama
Obama Jr's half-brother, Malik, was born and raised in Nairobi, in March, 1958, son of Kezia.
Abo Obama
Another half brother of Obama Jr, Abo, was born 1968. He is into mobile telephony business in Kenya
Auma Obama
Obama Jr's half-sister, Auma, was born in 1960. She was a development worker in Kenya.
Bernard Obama
Bernard, son of Kezia, was born in 1970. He had been an auto parts supplier in Nairobi. He is a father of one. Bernard converted to Islam as an adult.
Mark Ndesandjo
Mark, son of Ruth Nidesand and Obama Sr. He graduated from Brown University, studied physics at Stanford University, received an MBA from Emory University, and has lived in Shenzhen, China, since 2002. He is married to a Chinese woman.
George Hussein Onyango Obama
Youngest half-brother of Obama Jr, George, was born in 1982. He was a son of Obama Sr. and of a woman named Jael (now resident in Atlanta, Georgia). George was named after his father's grandfather. He was six months old when his grandfather died in an automobile accident. George was raised in Nairobi by his mother and a French step-father.
Hussein Onyango Obama
Obama Jr's paternal grandfather, Hussein, (1895-1979), worked as a mission cook. According to his third wife, Sarah, he originally was a Roman Catholic, but took the name Hussein when he converted to Islam. She said he passed the name, not the religion, on to his children. Hussein had three wives, Obama Jr's paternal grandmothers, Habiba Akumu Obama and Sarah Obama.
A Family Dogged By Tragedy
US President, Barack Hussein Obama's genealogy could be traced from the time when his father Barack Obama Sr, an office clerk in Nairobi, met and developed green eyes for Kezia in a ball room dance in Kendu Bay, Kenya.
Obama Sr. got married to the 16-year-old school girl, now Obama Jr's step mother in Kenya after the encounter.
In 1959, he left for Hawaii, USA, leaving behind Kezia three months pregnant with Auma.
Barack Sr, a Muslim, would go on to marry two more women - Obama Jr's mother, Ann Dunham, an American he met while on scholarship in the US, and another American, a teacher, Ruth Nidesand.
He had plans to marry the fourth when death snatched him. However, it was Kezia who remained his true love and to whom he returned.He met Ann Dunham, a student from Kansas in Honolulu and within months they were united by a bigamist marriage.
The marriage resulted to the birth of Obama Jr, in August 4, 1961.Barack Sr moved to Harvard two years later, abandoning Ann and Obama Jr behind.Throughout that period, he was constantly in touch with Kezia, sending her pictures of Ann and Obama Jr. What he failed to tell Kezia was that he had also met a third wife, Ruth.
Kezia discovered the secrecy in the hospital when Barack Sr lost both legs in a car crash while he was returning from clubbing.Bed-ridden, Barack Sr introduced his wives to each other. He went on to become a senior economist in Jomo Kenyatta's government, enjoying the lifestyle with Ruth that Kezia had dreamt of. He continued to see Kezia and had two sons, Abo and Bernard with her in 1968 and 1970 respectively.
Unfortunately, Barack Sr would die in 1982, before his American-based son, Obama Jr, made his first trip to Kenya.When Obama Jr visited Kenya, it was Kezia who received him at the airport.
She first met the man who will subsequently become America's first black president 20 years ago when he (Obama) visited the family compound in Alego, north-western Kenya.
They have been meeting each other in America and Bracknell, Kenya, where Kezia moved to join her daughter, Auma - Barack's elder half sister.
Barack Jr's mother, Ann Dunham visited Kenya when Obama Sr died. She met her co-wife, Kezia and they both became great friends.Since then, the Obamas have formed an extraordinary bond, despite their unstable family history and cultural and geographic differences.
When Ann died of ovarian cancer in 1995, Kezia formed the link to Barack's past. She took the pride of place at special family gatherings. She attended Barack Jr's inauguration as an Illinois senator in 2005.
Kezia's eldest son with Barack Sr, Roy, studied at Madrasah in Nairobi before moving to the US where he is an accountant.Obama's maternal Grandfather, Stanley Armour Dunham
According to Obama Jr's Dreams from My Father, his great maternal-grandmother Leona McCurry was part Native American.
Obama's maternal heritage consists mostly of English ancestry, with traits of German, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Swiss, and French ancestry.Obama Jr's mother, Ann, was born in 1942; she died of cancer in 1995.
His maternal grandmother, Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham, was born in 1922 and died on November 3, 2008 (eve of his victory). She was a bank vice president in Hawaii.
Stanley Dunham, his maternal grandfather (World War II U.S. Army sergeant and later furniture salesman in Hawaii), was born 1918.
Dunham and his wife helped their daughter, Ann to raise Obama Jr after her marriage with Obama Sr fell apart. Dunham died in 1992, in Honolulu, at the age of 73, four years before his grandson won his first political office.
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