President Bush traces his ancestry to religious dissenters who fled here for the New World, according to a city archivist who says the president also is a distant relative of Vice President Dan Quayle.
The archivist, Theo Schelhaas, presented Bush with a copy of his family tree Monday, showing his links to an English couple who married in Leiden in 1603. The president was in the Netherlands for a 24-hour stop, the last in his 10-day journey.Bush "appreciated very much that his lineage had been fleshed out" said Pieter de Baar, a research assistant for Schelhaas.
A small community of English Protestant dissenters lived in Leiden for more than a decade before setting sail for America in the early 17th century.
Bush is a 12th generation descendant of Francis Cooke and his Canterbury-born wife, Hester Mahieu, according to Schelhaas' records.
Little is known about the Cookes except their marriage date, June 4, 1603, and that they had three children, including daughter Jane Cooke, a Bush ancestor born here in 1615.
According to the Leiden records, Bush's roots can also be traced to another Pilgrim family, the sisters Abigail and Sarah Jenney, both born in Leiden and daughters of a brewer's apprentice, John Jenney, and his wife, Sarah Carey.
Bush's father was related to Abigail Jenney as well as to the Cookes, and his mother is a descendant of Sarah.
Bush, in his remarks at St. Peter's Church in Leiden, joked: "I'm glad to be back with my cousins because we fondly remember Aunt Abigail back there those many years ago."
Bush's ancestral connection with Quayle is with a 14th century family living on the Isle of Man, De Baar said.