Yesterday, during coverage of Joe Biden’s presidential win, I heard his full name for the first time. “Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.” And I thought, I’m sure I’ve heard that middle name (which is his mother’s maiden name) before.
I checked my database, and indeed, my 5th great-grandmother was Rachel Robinette Beasley, daughter of a John Robinette from Pennsylvania. This is one of those many lines I had bookmarked to come back to later. So, I have not researched further back myself.
However, Googling quickly revealed that there is only one Robinette family in America. They all descend from the same guy, Allen Robinett/Robinette, born 1632 in London, England, and later emigrated to Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Thanks to all the online documentation, it only took about ten minutes to figure out that Allen Robinett was Rachel’s grandfather, and therefore my 7th great-grandfather. Allen was also Joe Biden’s 5th great-grandfather. Biden’s branch stayed in Pennsylvania, while mine moved south to Georgia.
I couldn’t possibly do the math myself, but according to this cousin calculator, this means President-Elect Joe Biden is my 4th cousin 2 times removed.
I kind of doubt the new president will be inviting me over for a beer summit any time soon. But it was still pretty cool to discover that “Uncle Joe” is actually Cousin Joe!
How cool! When I was reminded of his middle name yesterday, my first thought was “What’s the story of the Robinette family?” Today I saw your post. While you might not get an official invitation, I’m sure that if you ever ran into him and told him the connection, he’d invite you to that Beer Summit.
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