Man finds horrifying connection to former president's family while researching his ancestry

Charles Holman, an African American lawyer, had been meticulously researching his family character for much than 50 years erstwhile he uncovered a startling portion of accusation linking him to nan Bush statesmanlike family. 

Throughout his life, Holman, 66, gathered stories, commencement and decease certificates, Census Bureau records, and DNA matches.

Through his ineligible training he developed a thoroughness, and a knack for connecting pinch strangers done letters, emails, and in-person meetings. 

Little by small he managed to link pinch distant relatives, some achromatic and white, piecing together a family history that reflected America's analyzable and fraught group past.

During his research, Holman attended a gathering of achromatic relatives who shared his surname and whose ancestors had enslaved his own.

He visited 3 plantations wherever his ancestors had labored without compensation and stood successful nan tiny, cramped quarters wherever they apt lived, successful nan dream he mightiness consciousness their presence. 

The discoveries altered Holman's cognition of himself, his family, and their spot successful American history.

A fewer years ago, Holman made a important find successful his study successful Maryland erstwhile he recovered a 1992 Kentucky newspaper article astir a family that included 1 U.S. president and would soon adhd another. 

The article pinch nan headline 'President George Bush has Kentucky connections', traced nan lineage of then-President George H.W. Bush and his boy George W. Bush to ancestors predating nan American Revolution.

Holman was acquainted pinch nan names of Bush's great-great-grandmother and her parents and managed to lucifer them pinch deeds and inheritance records he had antecedently uncovered.

The relationship added a singular caller magnitude to his extended family research. 

'It was nan coming together of things that I had been looking for for years,' Holman said to nan Washington Post. 

The newspaper article explained really George Herbert Walker Bush's ancestors had moved from Virginia to Kentucky successful nan precocious 1700s and early 1800s.

Among nan president's nonstop ancestors were Peter G. Foree and his girl Lucretia Green Foree Holliday who owned onshore in Anchorage, Kentucky.

According to Holman's research, members of nan Foree family who known to beryllium nan Bush's ancestors, enslaved members of nan Thomas family, Holman's ancestors. 

The article was a breakthrough successful piecing together his family tree. 

'It was 1 of nan top moments successful my life,' Holman said to The Post.

George H.W. Bush's third-great-grandfather was associated pinch astatine slightest 11 transatlantic enslaved crossings from West Africa. 

Last year, a Reuters investigation looked into nan links betwixt slaveholders and U.S. governmental elites.

The main of unit for erstwhile President George W. Bush acknowledged nan findings that suggested location were 25 slaves owned by nan Foree family. 

'A awesome Nation does not hide its history; it faces its flaws and corrects them,' Bush said astatine nan dedication of nan National Museum of African American History and Culture.

'We can't move person to our founding committedness of adjacent opportunity without remembering nan founding misdeed of slavery. That disturbing past inspires america to spell farther and faster connected nan travel toward a amended early of liberty and justness for all.' 

Genealogical investigation for illustration Holman's is simply a celebrated pursuit for galore Americans but for descendants of enslaved people, nan task is often challenging owed to sparse record-keeping, which often consists only of first names recorded successful spot ledgers. 

The truth that Holman was capable to tie a nonstop statement betwixt nan Bush's and his ain ancestors is astonishing. 

'I deliberation nan truth that he was capable to put this together was beautiful amazing,' forensic genealogist Katharine O'Connell said.

Holman has revealed he has since written letters to George W. Bush; Jeb Bush; Laura Bush and daughter Jenna Bush Hager who is simply a tv presenter pinch Today, but has truthful acold not received immoderate replies.

Despite nan deficiency of consequence from nan Bush family, Holman says he has been buoyed by nan tales of aged he has been proceeding which person been passed down done nan generations.

One communicative was astir how Robert Anderson Thomas, Holman's great-great-grandfather saw some cherry pies for nan the enslaved owner's woman sitting connected nan model sill erstwhile he was flooded by temptation.  

'Robert Anderson Thomas, my great-great-grandfather, saw nan pies, could smell them, but knew he would ne'er beryllium capable to person a sensation of it. They were pies for George Bush's ancestor, but he was a kid and he couldn't resist,' Holman explained.

'He devised an thought that if he could return a straw to nan apical of nan pie, he could suck retired nan juice and savor immoderate of nan pie's flavor, which he did - undetected.

'Later, erstwhile his mother was serving pies to George Bush's ancestors, nan slaveholder's woman remarked they were nan driest cherry pies she had ever eaten. And he thought it was truthful funny that decades later, good aft he'd escaped and slavery had agelong been over, he told this communicative to my grandmother.'