Obama Ancestor Was First Slave

Barack Obama’s family tree just got a little more storied. Researchers from the genealogy website Ancestry.com released evidence Monday which the group says proves that America’s first African-American president may be related to the country’s first documented African slave. “We have two of the most significant Africans in our country’s history being directly related to each other,” says Joseph Shumway, an Ancestry.com genealogist. The family connection stretches from Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, to John Punch, an indentured servant who was sentenced to life as a slave after a failed attempt to escape revolutionary Virginia.