Since U.S President Barack Obama’s connection with Ireland, many African Americans have been inspired to trace their Irish roots.

It appears that genealogical firms have been inundated with large numbers of queries of this kind from African Americans.

A leading academic recently revealed that Irish immigrants and African Americans married more than any other ethnic groups in the U.S. in the 19th century. That slave owners and poor immigrant workers are the two main groups of Irish ancestors being uncovered by African American looking into their past, the Daily Mail reports.

Eneclann, the Irish heritage company who discovered Mr Obama’s Irish ancestry says, ‘About half of the people we spoke to were descended from slave owners and half from poor Irish immigrants.’

Mr Obama owes his ancestry to Jane de Montmorency Wright, his closest living relative as sixth cousin, three times removed.

Jane says: ‘I am the same generation as Obama’s great-grandparents on the family tree. And my seven grandchildren, the oldest of whom is 17, appear to be a generation older than the President,' as read in the Daily Mail.

In 1850 Falmouth Kearney, the 19-year-old son of a shoemaker, left the Irish town of Moneygall for America, where he married Charlotte Holloway from Ohio. He was Mr Obama’s great-great-great-grandfather.
-----------
Read more:

Moneygall welcomes home their most famous son Barack Obama - VIDEOS & PHOTOS

Live (Monday): President Obama's historic visit to Ireland

-----------