--- title: Update for Ancestors of American Presidents description: NEHGS Senior Research Scholar Emeritus Gary Boyd Roberts makes his Vita Brevis début with a series of articles updating entries to his Ancestors of American Presidents, 2009 Edition, and its 2012 repr image: https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Ancestors-of-Am-Pres-14829-201x300-3.jpg --- # [Vita Brevis A resource for family history from AmericanAncestors.org](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. # Update for Ancestors of American Presidents [December 01, 2015](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/12/update-ancestors-american-presidents-1) [News](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/news), [Critical Analysis](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/critical-analysis), [Early New England Families Study Project](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/early-new-england-families-study-project), [International genealogical research](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/international-genealogical-research), [Genealogical Writing](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/genealogical-writing), [American History](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/american-history), [Spotlight](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/spotlight), [Brick Walls](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/brick-walls), [The Well-Stocked Genealogical Library](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/the-well-stocked-genealogical-library), [U.S. Presidents](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/u-s-presidents), [Great Migration Study Project](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/great-migration-study-project) [Gary Boyd Roberts](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/gbroberts) **Editor’s Note**: *NEHGS Senior Research Scholar Emeritus Gary Boyd Roberts makes his *[Vita Brevis](http://vita-brevis.org/)* début with a series of articles updating entries to his* Ancestors of American Presidents, 2009 Edition, *and its 2012 reprint*. [![Ancestors of Am Pres-14829](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Ancestors-of-Am-Pres-14829-201x300-3.jpg?width=201&height=300&name=Ancestors-of-Am-Pres-14829-201x300-3.jpg)](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Ancestors-of-Am-Pres-14829-3.jpg)The subject matter of [Ancestors of American Presidents](http://shop.americanancestors.org/collections/genealogies-notable-kin/products/ancestors-of-american-presidents-2nd-edition?pass-through=true) (first published in 1989) is intrinsically interesting, of course, but I have also found it to be a useful delineator of major patterns in American genealogical evolution. As I noted in the introduction to the 2009 edition of this book, within it "lie not only clues perhaps to new lines in your own ancestry, but also ... various, and collectively millions, of kinships to presidents. Discovering and enjoying these kinships..., you will, I hope, have further thoughts about your own genealogical connection, or 'fit,' into the country at large." The following entries show recent published research on the ancestors of American presidents and their spouses: 1. Dorothy ____, wife of **John Plumb** of Wethersfield and Branford, Conn., and ancestor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (p. 550), was **Dorothy Chaplin**, sister of Mrs. Martha Chaplin Parke (p. 636), first wife (and first cousin) of Robert Parke of New London and Stonington, Conn., an ancestor of President Harding; First Ladies Ellen Wilson and Bess Truman (pp. 642–43); and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, her sons, and her grandchildren. Dorothy and Martha were daughters of William Chaplin (and Agnes Holborough), son by an unknown wife of William Chaplin, d. 1575–77/78, of Long Melford, Suffolk, these last parents also of Alice Chaplin, wife of an elder Robert Parke and mother of the above New London immigrant. See *The American Genealogist *82 [2007]: 250–61. The Chaplin-derived kinship between Harding and FDR is the first between these two presidents, so FDR now has 19 presidential kinsmen, one more than G.H.W. and G.W. Bush, and Harding has ten (pp. 591–93). 1. Ulysses S. Grant and F.D. Roosevelt ancestor **John Scudder** (pp. 56 [#142], 455) was a son of Henry Scudder, d. 1594–95, of Horton Kirby, Kent, and Elizabeth ____. An almost certain granddaughter of this couple was the immigrant Bridget ____ of Salem, Mass., wife of Thomas Verry and Edward Giles, and mother of Eleazer Giles (p. 95), Taft ancestor #228. The resulting kinship between Grant and Taft would also be their first. Taft would then have 17 presidential kinsmen, and Grant eight. See *TAG* 72 [1997]: 285–300. 1. Grant and F.D. Roosevelt ancestor **Elizabeth (Stoughton) Scudder** (pp. 56 [#143], 455) was a daughter of Rev. Thomas Stoughton, b. ca. 1555, vicar of Naughton, Suffolk, and Coggeshall, Essex, and his first wife, Katherine ____. Elizabeth’s brother was Israel Stoughton (1602/3–1644), militia officer and founder of Dorchester, Mass., who married Elizabeth Knight, maternal aunt of Yale College benefactor Elihu Yale, and left (in addition to William Stoughton, chief justice of Mass. during the Salem witchcraft trials) a daughter, Rebecca Stoughton, who married William Tailer. Elizabeth (Tailer) Nelson, daughter of these last, was FDR ancestor #175, p. 124. See *TAG* 72 [1997]: 295–97, 29 [1953]: 193–204, 33 [1957]: 105–12, and the Nelson work by Temple Prime cited on p. 263. And for Exhurst, Roberts, likely Colepepper and Roper, and possible Lewknor and *RD* [royal descent] ancestry of the Stoughtons, see *The New England Historical and Genealogical Register* 165 [2011]: 245–60, 166 [2012]: 46–70. *To be continued.* ### Share this: - [mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/12/update-ancestors-american-presidents-1](mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/12/update-ancestors-american-presidents-1) - - - More - - ![Gary Boyd Roberts](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/AmericanAncestors_October2018/images/gold-leaf.png) ## About Gary Boyd Roberts Gary Boyd Roberts is the Senior Research Scholar Emeritus of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. A native of Houston, he is a graduate of Yale and the University of Chicago; he also studied at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include immigrant origins and royal descents; royal and noble genealogy; the ancestry of notable figures, especially American presidents; and colonial New England, the mid-Atlantic states, and the South. He is the author, co-author, or editor of numerous works, including Ancestors of American Presidents (1989, 1995, and 2009), and The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States (2004); his life’s work is “The Mowbray Connection: An Analysis of the Genealogical Evolution of British, American and Continental Nobilities, Gentries, and Upper Classes Since the End of the Middle Ages” in 23 vols.[View all posts by Gary Boyd Roberts →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/gbroberts) [← This "piecemeal world"](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/12/this-piecemeal-world) ["Here's three times three" →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2015/11/heres-three-times-three) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. ### Recent Posts [Sailor Bill and His Forgotten Wife](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/sailor-bill-and-his-forgotten-wife) [Professor X](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/professor-x) [Part I: Malaga Island, Maine](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/part-i-malaga-island-maine) [The Norwegian folge](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/the-norwegian-folge) [Research…in a Miniskirt? 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