Birth Name: Michelle LaVaughn Robinson
Place of Birth: Chicago, Illinois
Date of Birth: January 17, 1964
Ethnicity: African-American (mainly), with distant English, Scottish, and Irish
Michelle Obama is an American lawyer and writer. She is the wife of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, and as such has been First Lady of the United States since 2009.
Michelle is the daughter of Marian Robinson (born Marian Lois Shields), a secretary, and Fraser Robinson III, a city water plant employee. Her brother is college basketball coach and broadcaster Craig Robinson (not the actor of the same name).
Michelle’s parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents, were all black. Michelle also has some European ancestry on her family tree, with distant English, Scottish, and Irish, roots. One of Michelle’s white ancestors was her great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Marion Shields. Charles was the son of Henry Wells Shields and Christianna Payne Patterson.
Michelle’s paternal grandparents were Fraser Robinson, Jr. (the son of Fraser Robinson and Rose Ella Cohen) and LaVaughn Delores Johnson (the daughter of James Preston Johnson and Phoebe Moten).
Michelle’s maternal grandparents were Purnell Nathaniel Shields (the son of Robert Lee Shields and Anna Estelle Laws/Lawson) and Rebecca Jumper/Coleman (the daughter of James Jumper and Eliza Tinsley).
Michelle’s first cousin, once removed, is Rabbi Capers Funnye. Capers is a Jew-by-choice. Michelle’s paternal great-grandparents, Fraser Robinson and Rose Ella Cohen, were also Rabbi Funnye’s maternal grandparents.
As stated, Michelle’s great-grandmother Rose Ella Cohen had the usually Jewish surname “Cohen”. Rose was an African-American woman, whose father, Caesar Cohen, was also African-American. It is not clear where the “Cohen” surname originates in this family, or if Caesar Cohen had Jewish ancestry of some kind.
Sources: Genealogy of Michelle Obama – http://www.geni.com
Genealogy of Michelle Obama (focusing on her father’s side) – http://www.wargs.com
Notes on Michelle’s ancestry, by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak – http://www.honoringourancestors.com