Free Republic

US presidential race hopeful Sarah Palin can trace her family tree back to 18th century NORWICH, historians revealed last night. The Vice-President candidate’s great, great, great, great, great grandfather Robert Gower was baptised in the Norfolk city in 1723, according to ancestry.co.uk. Gower, who is from her mum’s side of the family, then left for the US in the 18th Century, and his son James was born in Maine. Mum-of-five Palin, 44, dubbed the Republican Pitbull in Lipstick, also claims an Irish connection, like Democrat rival Barack Obama.

EXPERTS FIND RARE ROMANI DNA IN NORWICH ANGLO SAXON SKELETON By Sarah Morley 12/05/2006 The recent discovery of Romani DNA in an Anglo Saxon skeleton has made experts re-think the nature of the city's early population. Picture courtesy Sophie Cabot. © HEART Experts from Norfolk Archaeology Unit based at Norwich Castle have discovered a rare form of mitochondrial DNA identified as Romani in a skeleton discovered during excavations in a large area of Norwich for the expansion of the castle mall. The DNA was found in an 11th century young adult male skeleton, and with the first recorded arrival of...

NORWICH, Conn. (AP) -- A local man believes the first president to serve under the Articles of Confederation -- Samuel Huntington of Norwich -- was technically the nation's first president. Now, Bill Stanley is seeking $10 million to build a presidential library for Huntington here. Stanley, president of the Norwich Historical Society, asked the City Council on Monday night to donate $1 million from funds it expects to receive from the Mohegan American Indian Tribe, owners of Mohegan Sun casino. Stanley is also seeking funding from state and federal governments. "Facts are on our side. History is on our side,...

A KEY al-Qaeda operative responsible for recruiting the shoe bomber Richard Reid and one of the September 11 hijackers helped to kidnap five British children from their Norwich home and take them to Libya, a court was told yesterday. Djamel Beghal, 39, is serving ten years in a French prison for plotting a suicide attack on the US Embassy in Paris and was described as so dangerous that even other al-Qaeda members thought him beyond the pale. While he was living in Leicester in the late 1990s Beghal, an Algerian, met Azzedin Journazi, from Libya, at a city mosque and...