President John Adams (1797-1801)

If you are a descendant of Thomas Horan and Dorothy Donaghy (Nana), this may interest you.  I inadvertently found a genealogical link from Nana’s family to second US President John Adams. We do have a family tree from the Donaghy family tracing her family to the Mayflower passengers, but discovering a connection to John Adams is something I recently stumbled upon while reading John Adams epic biography by David McCullough.  In colloquial ancestral terms, even if you aren’t directly from the Horan/Donaghy branch, you’re somehow related to Nana anyway if you’re on my family member list, so read on!

1.      Dorothy Donaghy (married Thomas Horan-George Horan/Mary Ann Doran) was a 12^th generation descendant from the Mayflower Pilgrims, John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. 

2.      John Alden and Priscilla Mullins had eleven children.

3.      John Adams' Great Grandfather, Joseph Adams, married Hannah Bass, daughter of John Bass and Ruth Alden (7^th child of Alden/Mullins).

4.      The Donaghys married into the ancestral line of Elizabeth Alden (2^nd child of Alden/Mullins) in the mid 1800’s.  

5.      Ruth and Elizabeth were sisters.  That would make President John Adams and his family distant cousins in our Horan/Donaghy line.

Here are more famous people we may claim ancestry from John Alden/Priscilla Mullins or John Adams:

·         John Quincy Adams (6^th US President)

·         Millard Fillmore (13^th US President)

·         William Howard Taft (27^th US President)

·         Calvin Coolidge (30^th US President)

·         Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet)

·         William Cullen Bryant (poet)

·         Marilyn Monroe (actress)

·         Orson Welles (actor

·         Dick Van Dyke (actor)

·         Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet)

·         William Cullen Bryant (poet)

(sources:  www.whitehouse.gov; www.alden.org; www.mayflowerhistory.com; John Adams by David McCullough-published May 22, 2001)