{"id":1551,"date":"2009-07-20T17:45:26","date_gmt":"2009-07-20T17:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene.php"},"modified":"2009-07-20T17:45:26","modified_gmt":"2009-07-20T17:45:26","slug":"mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene","title":{"rendered":"Mormon Leaders Give Obama Genealogical History"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama met with Mormon leaders Monday (July 20) and received genealogical information about his family.
\nThe president met with President Thomas Monson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Elder Dallin Oaks, who oversees the church’s genealogical program, along with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid, a Mormon, set up the meeting, said White House spokesman Jen Psaki.
\n“I enjoyed my meeting with President Monson and Elder Oaks,” Obama said in a statement. “I’m grateful for the genealogical records that they brought with them and am looking forward to reading through the materials with my daughters. It’s something our family will treasure for years to come.”
\nA White House spokesman said Mormon leaders presented Obama, whose mother was a Kansan and whose father was a Kenyan, with information about both sides of his family.
\nGenealogy is central to the Mormon faith because the church teaches that Mormons can be baptized “by proxy” on behalf of their dead ancestors, who can then choose whether to accept the baptism in the afterlife.
\n“LDS Church leadership has met with previous presidents and presented them with genealogical records detailing their family history,” Psaki said.
\nThe White House did not comment on whether there was any discussion of past reports that Mormons performed a baptism on behalf of Obama’s late mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. His mother was an agnostic, whom the president described in February at the National Prayer Breakfast as “the kindest, most spiritual person I’ve ever known.”
\nBy Adelle M. Banks
\nReligion News Service
\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama met with Mormon leaders Monday (July 20) and received genealogical information about his family. The president met with President Thomas Monson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Elder Dallin Oaks, who oversees the church’s genealogical program, along with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid, a Mormon, set up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMormon Leaders Give Obama Genealogical History<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mormon Leaders Give Obama Genealogical History\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama met with Mormon leaders Monday (July 20) and received genealogical information about his family. The president met with President Thomas Monson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Elder Dallin Oaks, who oversees the church’s genealogical program, along with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid, a Mormon, set up…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-20T17:45:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mormon Leaders Give Obama Genealogical History","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mormon Leaders Give Obama Genealogical History","og_description":"WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama met with Mormon leaders Monday (July 20) and received genealogical information about his family. The president met with President Thomas Monson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Elder Dallin Oaks, who oversees the church’s genealogical program, along with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid, a Mormon, set up…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-07-20T17:45:26+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene","name":"Mormon Leaders Give Obama Genealogical History","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-07-20T17:45:26+00:00","dateModified":"2009-07-20T17:45:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/mormon-leaders-give-obama-gene#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mormon Leaders Give Obama Genealogical History"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}