Notable Relatives: Mitt Romney

This is a very occasional series about notable descendants of some of the people featured on this blog.

Willard Mitt Romney, currently slated to become the presidential nominee for the Republican Party in the 2012 general election, is a descendant of Archibald Newell Hill and his first wife, Isabella Hood Hill. Archibald and Isabella were Scots living in Canada when they met two missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Samuel Lake and James Standing. The Hill family joined the Church and set out for Nauvoo and then started west with the Saints. Isabella died at Winter Quarters. Archibald set off across the plains and his sisters took his three small children, Samuel, Hannah, and Rebecca, to the Salt Lake Valley. Archibald later remarried (several times) and had a large family.

Standing, left to right: Archibald Newell Hill, Samuel Hood Hill. Seated, left to right: Hannah Hood Hill Romney, Rebecca Hood Hill Pettit.

I have wondered a time or two if it could have ever crossed the mind of Archibald and Isabella as they left Scotland, and then as they left Canada for the United States that theirs would be an integral part of the American dream: immigrants leaving old Europe and establishing a home in America and having their descendants become doctors and lawyers and professors and governors and even a possible president of the United States.

Romney's descendancy is:

Archibald and Isabella Hill

Hannah Hood Hill Romney

Gaskell Romney

George Wilcken Romney

Willard Mitt Romney

Our line is:

Archibald and Isabella Hill

Rebecca Hood Hill Pettit

Mary Isabell Pettit Green

Lucile Green Glade

Beverly Glade Wessman

This means that Grandma Beverly was a third cousin to the current candidate.

I personally find this relation only mildly interesting since Romney, being descended as he is from Archibald Hill, Miles Romney, Parley P. Pratt, Charles Wilcken, and others (see my Brief Guide to Mitt Romney's Polygamous Heritage) probably has many tens of thousands of cousins in the Church today, and it's neither rare nor novel to be related to him.

Note: I have extensive materials about Archibald and Isabella Hill and their families. They lived fascinating and complicated lives, but for a variety of reasons I will probably not get around to blogging about them until next year.