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Presidential genealogy: Bill Clinton - illegitmate (at least)

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Tony Hoskins

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Mar 28, 2008, 1:44:16 PM3/28/08
to GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
The convoluted matter of Bill Clinton's father.
--------

The New York Times
Friday, March 28, 2008
Bigamy Question Is Raised Regarding President's Father
Published: August 8, 1993

President Clinton's [born 19 August 1946] father might have committed
bigamy by marrying Mr. Clinton's mother before his divorce from a
previous wife was final, two newspapers reported today.

The President's father, William Jefferson Blythe 3d, was married in
1941 in Jackson County, Mo., to a Kansas City woman, , Wanetta Ellen
Alexander, The Kansas City Star and The New York Daily News reported.

Court records show that Mrs. Alexander was not granted a divorce until
April 13, 1944, seven months after Mr. Blythe married Virginia Cassidy,
the President's mother, in Arkansas, the newspapers said.

Mr. Clinton's mother, who has since remarried twice and is now Virginia
Kelley, told the Star on Friday: "I knew absolutely nothing about it. It
was news to me."

Mr. Clinton's father was killed in an automobile accident in 1946, a
few months before Mr. Clinton was born.
---------------------------

Strictly speaking, President Clinton is illegitimate: Common law
"dictated that if a man married a second time while still legally
married to his first wife, a child born of the bigamous marriage was
illegitimate."
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Illegitimacy

The ex-President appears to be legally the illegitimate son of William
Jefferson Blyth by Virginia Cassidy. But, occasionally rumors
(completely unsubstantiated as far as I know) have circulated that
Blythe, who married Clinton's mother bigamously, may not ven have
actually been the president's father.

Possibly Bill Clinton's "paternal question" could involve more than his
legal illegitimacy.

Tony Hoskins
Santa Rosa, California


AdrianBnjmBurke

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Mar 28, 2008, 1:53:15 PM3/28/08
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Tony - by any chance was the author of this Times article Karl
Rove???!!!!!

I stopped taking the Times seriously earlier this year when a building
on my block burned down and the Times (which is located about 5 blocks
away) wrote an article about it the next day and confused the building
on my street with a completely different building that burned some
place else in the City) granted, two tenement buildings burning in the
same city may be too much to keep straight but really....

from a legal perspective this is interesting since in england as long
as the wife's husband was "in" great britain at the time of birth the
child was presumed to be legitimate - isn't this kind of thing not all
together rare - where a person remarries before the final divorce
decree is entered into the record??

wjhonson

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Mar 28, 2008, 2:12:43 PM3/28/08
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Thanks Tony. I had previously only had "a Missouri waitress" and
stopped researching on that a while back. But now I've added her full
name and the dates from the NYT's article to my article on Bill
Clinton.

But wait... there's more!

Not only is there this issue, but *as well*, Bill Clinton was born at
a full-term weight, but his purported-father had been overseas 9 1/2
months before his birth. When pressed, Virginia claimed he was
"premature", but can anyone use a standard birth chart to calculate
how much Bill should have weighed if he'd been mature?

Makes you pause.

M.Sjostrom

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Mar 28, 2008, 1:56:07 PM3/28/08
to GEN-ME...@rootsweb.com

fancy and windy-worded way to express a sentiment that
Bill must be a bastard


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M.Sjostrom

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Mar 28, 2008, 1:42:02 PM3/28/08
to GEN-ME...@rootsweb.com

dears Tony and others,

It looks like sarcasm would not get understood.

When I wrote, my tongue firmly on my cheek, about
Bush' incestuous origin and old folk wisdom, I thought
I put in enough clues to hint that I do not
particularly believe in that explanation in this case.

a careful reading of course would (should) reveal,
whether I wrote anything to explicitly say whether
that inbredness thing is *my* opinion of the case...

And, the carefully chosen content of the addendum,
about historical people who were born of first
cousins, was intended to spell out some skepticism.
As none of those four or so rulers actually were
unsuccessful in what they were doing.


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M.Sjostrom

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Mar 28, 2008, 1:50:54 PM3/28/08
to GEN-ME...@rootsweb.com

"BUT ... John McCain is not shown as a descendant of
this Early!"


Exactly.
The Guardian got a couple of doctors to shoot down the
Bruce ancestry "claim", and none of them bothered to
mention this very point.
They just galloped around, shooting down the "lineage"
and surnames and whatnot, using imo fallacious
reasons; seemingly taking in earnest that they have to
make a case of shooting down the lineage, whatever it
is, and whomever it belongs to.

at a stage, I started to think that no doubt, they
will try shoot down all claims of Elizabeth II of any
descent from Robert the Bruce.
(You know, Windsor is not a Scots surname, and so
forth... and Charlemagne descent must be impossible to
prove through Middle Ages and anyway, Bruce and
Charlemagne cannot be not connected...)

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letiTi...@gmail.com

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Mar 28, 2008, 3:45:30 PM3/28/08
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DNA, DNA, DNA

~Bret, scion of Charle de Magne

http://Back-stabbing Ancestral Descendants ASSoc.genealogy.medieval

Dora Smith

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Mar 28, 2008, 7:52:13 PM3/28/08
to qs...@yahoo.com, GEN-ME...@rootsweb.com
Question - now, I'm sure this is off topic. But inquiring minds have to
know.

What in the world is his wife?

Mind, I wouldn't be wondering if it were just that I'm for Obama.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX
tigge...@yahoo.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "M.Sjostrom" <qs...@yahoo.com>
To: <GEN-ME...@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 12:56 PM
Subject: Presidential genealogy: Bill Clinton - illegitmate (at least)


>
> fancy and windy-worded way to express a sentiment that
> Bill must be a bastard
>
>


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Dora Smith

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Mar 28, 2008, 8:04:40 PM3/28/08
to Tony Hoskins, GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
Well, to be sure, that was very common in those days. My great grandfather
remarried and never divorced his first wife.

Now, talk about wondering what Bill Clinton's wife is, she could belong to
some lines of my family - except that she's even stranger than they are.
See, my mother's father's lines PRETEND to have morals, and Bill Clinton's
wife is doing a darned good imitation of having never learned what a moral
is - or else she genuinely wants to lose the election. What raised her?

See, my family claimed not to know anything about him remarrying - but they
absolutely INSIST that there was a proper divorce.

OK, if neither of them remarried, they went their separate ways, and noone
even knew where he was, why does it matter if there was a proper divorce?

His first wife actually moved to a new city and claimed everywhere I can
find any mention of her marital status, to be a widow. Yet it seems to be
my grandfather who insisted they divorced. He must have been an even
better liar than I've given him credit for.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX
tigge...@yahoo.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Hoskins" <hos...@sonoma.lib.ca.us>
To: <GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 12:44 PM
Subject: Presidential genealogy: Bill Clinton - illegitmate (at least)

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