Posted on 07/20/2004 8:23:33 PM PDT by Land_of_Lincoln_John
DERRY (AP) - John Kerry’s family tree includes the Irish immigrant believed to have introduced the potato to America, according to research by a local historian.
Numerous publications have stated over the years that Kerry is Irish-American, considered a political advantage in Massachusetts, the nation’s most Irish state. But Kerry says he never indicated he was Irish and corrected the misstatements whenever possible.
The senator’s family took its name from a county in Ireland, but it was an adopted name. His grandfather, Frederick Kerry, a Czech Jew, changed his name from Fritz Kohn when he came to America.
But Derry town historian Richard Holmes said he has traced Kerry’s lineage back to the Rev. James McGregor, who emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland, and founded the town that later split in two and became Londonderry and Derry, N.H.
Holmes, who describes himself as “a loyal Republican who never votes that way,” decided to research the Kerry family tree this summer when a friend told him Kerry might have a link to Derry.
Holmes said Kerry’s Irish connection is through his mother, Rosemary Forbes, whose great-grandfather was the great-grandson of the Rev. David McGregor.
David McGregor, the first minister in what is now Londonderry, was the son of the Rev. James McGregor and Marion Cargill, both born in Ireland of Scottish ancestry.
James McGregor led a group of settlers from Londonderry, Ireland, to New Hampshire in the early 1700s in search of political, economic, cultural and religious freedom.
In 1720, local history has it, McGregor also planted the first potatoes in North America.
Holmes said he also found Kerry has a distant family connection with pop diva Britney Spears and President Franklin Pierce, a New Hampshire native.
Holmes said he likes to think the ghost of McGregor, who died in 1729, helped his great-times-seven-grandson win the New Hampshire primary and set him on the road that will lead to the Democratic nomination in Boston.
He said it may also explain Kerry’s fondness for MaryAnn’s Diner in Derry, a frequent stop during the primary campaign.
“He was obviously looking for his roots,” Holmes said.
Eric Schultz, a Kerry spokesman, said the senator is not aware of any Irish roots.
Uh, like, no.
From NRO, March 17, 2004: Kerry’s Irish Blarney (Massachusetts's Irish voters assumed Kerry was one of their own)
" Still doesn't make him Irish."
Kerry's mother was born in Paris and lived in France until she emigrated to America, in 1941-at age 28, to marry her fiancee-Richard Kerry, " an American Air Corps pilot."
She was very scared to come to America , as evidenced by her letter to Richard in 1941 :
" .. I am so scared of coming to America, but, with you I know everything will be all right.
Cheri,je t'embrasse de tout mon coeur,
Rosy "
( " John F Kerry, The Complete Biography By The Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best," Page 16.)
Richard and Rosy remained in America from 1941 until 1954, when they moved back to Europe.
Kerry's mother's family lived in France and not only summered at the family compound in St Briac,France ,they wintered there and falled there and springed there.
Kerry's mother and grandmother and aunts and cousins,on the Forbes side-spoke with French accents.
Kerry's paternal grandparents,Ida and Frederich Kohn emigrated to America, from Austria, when they were in their early thirties.
They changed their name from Kohn to Kerry, to make the emigration process easier.
And they also changed their religion-from Jewish to Catholic.
It was easier at the time for Catholics to get permission to emigrate.
They spoke accented English like Arnold and Wolfgang Puck.
Kerry's family did not have a family compound in County Mayo,Ireland-they had a family compound in France.
John Kerry is a liar and a fraud.
Kerry knew his mother spoke English with a French accent.
Kerry knew his grandmother and aunts and Forbes cousins spoke English with a French accent.
Kerry knew his father's Kohn side spoke English with thick Austrian accents.
If after all this, Kerry still had no idea that he was part French, part Austrian and not Irish,he is too stupid to be President.
Now does the story sound like BS?
Would that be the Kerrys of County Prague?
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!
just "i am one of you" propaganda.
and bill clinton was black.
"Rev. James McGregor, who emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland"
That's in the North of Ireland,he's descended from Scots on the Forbes side.
He's as Irish as my German Short Haired Pointer.
Williamite Wars
Emigration 1718 - 1740
Small numbers of Ulster Presbyterians had emigrated to America in the late seventeenth century, mainly from the Laggan in north-east Donegal, but it was not until 1718 that the exodus began in earnest.In that year eleven Presbyterian ministers and nearly three hundred members of their congregations petitioned the governor of New England, Samuel Shute, for a grant of land. Shute gave every encouragement and in the summer of the same year five ships left Derry quay for Boston.
James McGregor, minister of the Aghadowey congregation and leader of the expedition, got a grant of land on the frontier north of the Merrimac river in what is now New Hampshire, which he named Londonderry in honour, he said, of Ulster Protestants' 'finest hour'. Another ship, the Maccullum, followed soon after from Derry; its passengers settled at Casco Bay in Maine, where they were soon locked in conflict with local native Americans. From the outset the Ulster Presbyterians were to prove themselves pugnacious frontiersmen.
That's weird.
I thought potatoes were introduced to Europe from *here*.
I think he posts here.
Bah.
I'm still disavowing any connection to him...his ancestors were probably d*amn "planter" Irishman anyway....:))
Column fodder, perhaps!
The potato, too, is a member of the nightshade family and, if Alton Brown and his Nutritional Anthropoligst are to be believed, most of Europe didn't want much to do with it because of that. I wonder, sometimes, how mankind survived after all these crazy attempts at sticking things in our mouths (hey look, berries! Hey, look, I dry this leaf out, roll it up, light it on fire and suck on it! hey, look, 'schrooms!).
I'm suprised he hasn't used this research as an opporunity to tell Wolf Blitzer that his family took initiative in creating the potato...
Neither the mostly Protestant Scots nor the mostly Catholic Irish can claim anything like purity of blood or a vast distinction from the other ethnic group based on genetic heritage.
Thanks toots! :-)
I'm amazed that you were the first Freeper to ping me to this load of Bollix though!
*L*
If John Kerry is Irish.
I'm f*ckin Nigerian!
All true,however in the context of Kerry claiming Irish heritage to better his standings among Boston voters,he would have to be an Irish Catholic.
And despite his protestations to the contrary,he did claim he was Irish,on several occasions.
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