http://videoportal.sf.tv/video?id=56ebcf8b-41b0-485a-aeb0-a918d2eac350;DCSext.zugang=videoportal_sendungsuebersicht(Video is in German)
A Swiss village has laid claim to Barack Obama’s roots – the latest European location to throw its name into the multicultural mix that is the United States president.
After three months of combing through town records, a Swiss archivist has traced Obama’s family tree to a villager from western Switzerland.
While the ancestor in question – Hans Gutknecht – was already confirmed by archivists to have lived in the French Alsace village of Bischwiller in 1720, experts suspected he might have originated from Switzerland. Now, his baptism record from the village of Ried bei Kerzers has been unearthed.
A rustic German-speaking village near the capital Bern, Ried bei Kerzers is quintessentially Swiss. Set among wheat fields, its quiet streets are lined with huge, long-roofed farmhouses and pristine gardens.
Still largely a farming village to this day, it boasts one shop, a church and a lone petrol pump.
In the past the Gutknecht name was common in the region around Ried bei Kerzers and when speculation arose in recent years about a possible tie to Obama, a number of local Gutknechts came forward claiming the president as their own.
It was the village council that decided to end the “mystery” forever, by putting its genealogist, Hans Herren, on the case. Through a process of elimination of different Gutknecht branches he traced the line down to a family in nearby Fräschels. The family tree ends with their 12-year-old boy, Obama’s distant cousin.
At the same time, Herren tracked down the 1692 baptism certificate for one Hans Gutknecht – Obama’s seventh-great grandfather on his mother’s side. He emigrated to France in the early 1700s and his son later moved to Pennsylvania in the US, changing his name to Goodnight. The findings have been authenticated by the Fribourg cantonal archive department.
The research and the resulting family tree have been assembled into a bound press pack, ready for a media launch by the village to present the findings on July 13.
Good news for Democrats
Obama records details of some of his Kenyan roots in his book, Dreams of My Father, and in recent years the family tree on his mother’s side has been traced back to Germany, France and Ireland, with each new excited find provoking references to Obama wearing lederhosen or jokes about his name being O’Bama.
Ried bei Kerzers’ discovery was picked up by Alain Chardonnens, a pro-Obama history lecturer from Fribourg who wove the development into a book he has written on the president’s first 100 days in office.
He told swissinfo.ch that further evidence of Obama’s Swiss roots would help silence opponents who make an issue out of his origins and conspiracy theorists who insist he was not born within the US.
“It was very important for him and for the Democratic Party in 2008. The Republicans attacked his Arab name, Hussein. The Democrats also wanted to show the white voters that Obama also had white origins and that he was an American like everyone else”.
Today, the discovery of his Swiss roots will be “good news” for the Democrats, he noted. “We are coming up to the US mid-terms election. The Tea Party is still attacking Obama. His birth certificate is still under attack. This brings new proof that he is an American just like everyone else”.
But he says that’s where the benefits will probably end.
“I think for the village residents it is a great source of pride. But besides that, what else can you do about it?” he asks, joking that the village could erect a statue of Obama in the village or try to become a twin town with Washington DC.
“There certainly won’t be any economic impact. There will not be any political impact. It just flatters the pride of the residents”.
According to Heinz Etter, the village’s 1,064 residents are taking their newfound fame in their stride.
“After finding out about the connection we went back to work. We aren’t going to stop working because of this. Nothing has changed”.
