Senator Clinton’s paternal grandparents, Hugh Rodham and Hannah
Jones, were respectively a native of Kyo, co. Durham, England (in the
North), and the daughter of John and Mary Jones, Welsh immigrant to
Scranton, Pa. Hugh was the son of Jonathan Rodham and Isabella Simpson
Bell, who immigrated from Durham to Scranton about 1881/82. Jonathan was
the son of coal miner Joseph Rodham (1817-1874) of Tanfield, Holmside,
and Lanchester, co. Durham, and Elizabeth Scurfield. Isabella Simpson
Bell was the daughter of coal miner Thomas Bell (born about 1801) and
Elizabeth Dawson (born about 1819), natives of Walls End, co.
Northumberland (also in northern England). The parents of Joseph and
Elizabeth were Jonathan Rodham, Anne Parkinson, Thomas Scurfield, and
Margaret Charlton; Bells and Dawsons have not been further traced. The
Rodhams are known for one more generation; Jonathan was the son of
Joseph Rodham (died about 1742) of Chester-le-Street and Tanfield, co.
Durham and Dorothy Bell (born at Chester-le-Street 26 August 1750).
Dorothy Bell, Scurfields, and Charltons may be traced for a few more
generations; surnames introduced in these earlier generations include
Graham (likely Scottish), Stodart, Whittigar, and Coldcole.
Senator
Clinton’s mother, Chicago native Dorothy Emma Howell, still living, is
the daughter of Edwin John Howell, Jr., and Delia Murray, children
themselves of Edwin John Howell (1867-1941) and Emma Josephine Monk (1874-1940),
both of whom died in Los Angeles; and Daniel Murray (born 1859) and
Delia Martin (born about 1861), natives of Ontario, Canada and Michigan,
respectively. English Howells and Monks may also be traced for a few
more generations; new Welsh or English surnames through these lines
include Babb, Abbs, Williams, Hinton, Cotterell, Hodiernne, Floyd,
Essex, Lashford, Bradley, and Blakeway.
The parents of Daniel
Murray are unknown; Illinois and Michigan censuses indicate that they
were Scots. Murray’s wife, Delia Martin was the daughter of an Antoine
Martin (son of French natives Nicholas-Antoine Martine and Odile
Richard), and Mary Ann Frances McDougall (1823-1898), born in Windsor,
Ontario, who died in Detroit. Mary Ann Frances was a daughter of James
McDougall and Catherine Godet dite Marentette, granddaughter of
John Robert McDougall and Archange Campeau, and great- granddaughter of
George McDougall and Marie-Françoise Navarre. George McDougall was
Scots, but Catherine, Archange, and Marie-Françoise were fully
French-Canadian. Their ancestry, and the full French-Canadian ancestry
of Hillary Rodham Clinton, is traced in “Hillary Rodham Clinton’s
French-Canadian Ancestry: Detroit and Michigan Connection,” by Gail
Moreau-DesHarnais and Diane Wolford Sheppard, published in Michigan’s
Habitant Heritage: Journal of the French-Canadian Heritage Society of
Michigan, vol. 28 #4 (Oct. 2007), pp. 197-202.
Several
French-Canadian scholars have traced a variety of notable distant
cousins of the Senator, all themselves of French-Canadian heritage. Most
French-Canadians or descendants of French-Canadians may indeed be
related to most other French Canadians to the extent of ninth to twelfth
cousins – all descend from a small population of seventeenth-century
French immigrants to what is now the province of Québec (a similar range
of kinship connects most U.S. residents with New England ancestry).
Some of these distant cousins include Canadian Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau, writer Jack Kerouac, singers Madonna (through her mother) and
Céline Dion, actress Angelina Jolie, recent Canadian Prime Minister Jean
Chrétien and, quite surprisingly, Camilla Shand Parker Bowles, now
H.R.H. The Duchess of Cornwall. The Duchess has French-Canadian ancestry
through Marie-Charlotte Coursol, wife of New England-to-Canada
immigrant Ephraim Jones, a great-uncle of Henry David Thoreau (via
Jones, Stuart, MacNab, Keppel, Cubitt, and Shand).
The Senator’s
only forebears who lived in the American colonies (pre-1776) were (with
his parents) Hillebrand Lootman of New Amsterdam, who in the Dutch
Reformed Church in Albany, New York, on 20 December 1689 married the
French Marie-Anne Leber (see The American Genealogist 66
[1991]: 1-9, 90-92, 169-75). Through Hillebrand Lootman the Senator is
1/1024th (about one tenth of one percent) New York Dutch. Further
research by English, Welsh, Scottish, French, and French Canadian
genealogists is eagerly awaited.
Gary Boyd Roberts
Notable
Kin:
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
Jack Kerouac
Madonna
Céline Dion
Angelina Jolie
Canadian Prime Minister Jean
Chrétien
Camilla Shand Parker-Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall