Family of Joe Biden
Joe Biden, the 46th and current president of the United States, has family members who are prominent in law, education, activism and politics. Biden's immediate family became the first family of the United States on his inauguration on January 20, 2021. His immediate family circle was also the second family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, when Biden was vice president. Biden's family is mostly descended from the British Isles, with most of their ancestors coming from Ireland and England, and a smaller number descending from the French.[1][2]
Family of Joe Biden
- Joe Biden
- Jill Biden
- Beau Biden †
- Hunter Biden
- Naomi Christina Biden †
- Ashley Biden
- Finnegan Biden
- Naomi Biden
- Catherine Eugenia Finnegan †
- Joseph R. Biden Sr. †
Of Joe Biden's sixteen great-great-grandparents, ten were born in Ireland. He is descended from the Blewitts of County Mayo and the Finnegans of County Louth.[3] One of Biden's great-great-great-grandfathers was born in Sussex, England, and emigrated to Maryland in the United States by 1820.[4]
Joe Biden has married twice and fathered four children. His seven grandchildren come from his two sons, five from Hunter and two from Beau.
Pets
Biden had a German Shepherd, Major.[41][42] Major is a rescue dog who was adopted from the Delaware Humane Association by Joe and Jill Biden in 2018, but he was given to family friends after a biting incident at the White House.
He had another German Shepherd, Champ, who was with the Bidens when Joe Biden was vice president from 2009 to 2017, but died early into Joe Biden's term as president.[43] In December 2021, Biden announced the addition of a puppy named Commander to his family. On January 28, 2022, the Bidens announced that they had adopted Willow, a tabby cat.[44]
Parents
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania,[2]: 5 to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan; July 7, 1917 – January 8, 2010)[45] and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. (November 13, 1915 – September 2, 2002),[46] who married in 1941. After the death of Jean Finnegan Biden on January 8, 2010, President Barack Obama traveled to Wilmington, Delaware, to attend her January 12 funeral.[47]
Joseph Sr. was initially wealthy but suffered financial setbacks around the time Joe Jr. was born,[48][49][50] and for several years the family lived with Jean's parents. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Joseph Sr. could not find steady work.[51] Beginning in 1953, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, then moved to a house in Wilmington, Delaware. Joseph Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.[52][51][53]
Joe Sr. and Catherine are buried together at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Cemetery in Greenville, Delaware. Their gravesites are near the graves of their daughter-in-law Neilia Hunter Biden, their granddaughter Naomi, and grandson Beau.[54]
Joe Biden is the oldest of four siblings in a Catholic family, followed by his younger sister Mary Valerie Biden Owens (born 1945), and two younger brothers, James Brian "Jim" Biden (born 1949) and Francis William "Frank" Biden (born 1953).[2]: 9 [55] Valerie was one of the campaign managers for Joe Biden's presidential campaigns. Biden's niece Missy Owens (daughter of Valerie Biden Owens) has also worked in politics.
Grandparents
Paternal
Joseph Sr.'s parents, Mary Elizabeth (née Robinette) Biden (1894–1943) and Joseph Harry Biden (1893–1941),[66][67] an oil businessman from Baltimore, Maryland, were of English, French, and Irish descent.[1][2]: 8
Biden's paternal third great-grandfather, William Biden (1787–1849), a stonemason, was born in England and emigrated to the United States by 1820, where he settled in Maryland. According to historian Eddy Greenfield, he was born in Sussex,[68] and was christened at St John the Baptist's Church in Westbourne, West Sussex, on 8 March 1789. William was the second child and son of James Byden (born November 1767) and Ann Silverlock (born March 1766), who had married on 16 May 1785. James Byden, Biden's paternal fourth great-grandfather, was from Pagham. He was the son of Richard Byden, Biden's paternal fifth great-grandfather, and his wife Susan, beyond which the paternal family line cannot be traced.[69] Two other of Biden's third paternal great-grandfathers, Jesse Robinett and Thomas Randle, were slave owners in 19th century Maryland.[70][71]
A possible connection may also exist to the family of a William Henry Biden, who was from Houghton, Cambridgeshire, and lived from 1791 to 1843.[72] This William Henry was a son of John Biden (died 28 July 1796) and his wife Ann Beaumont, who had married in 1781.[72] The seventh of eight children and the family's fifth son,[73] William Henry and his elder brother, Christopher Biden (1789–1858), served as officers in the East India Company merchant marine, both eventually becoming captains of East Indiamen. William Henry commanded mid-sized vessels before his death at Rangoon in 1843.[74]
Christopher Biden subsequently became an official in the Madras Civil Service (later the Indian Civil Service), and his descendants settled in India. He died at Madras in 1858. In 1981, Christopher's great-great-grandson, Leslie Dunn Biden, then living in Nagpur, wrote to Joe Biden about the possible family connection after reading about him in the Illustrated Weekly of India. After discussing their genealogy, they promised to stay in touch but did not resume correspondence before Leslie's death in 1983.[73] During a 2013 visit to India, Joe Biden referred to Leslie's letter, mentioning a "Biden from Mumbai" had suggested their "mutual great-great-great-great-something-or-other" named George had "worked for the East India Company back in the 1700s."[74]
Maternal
Jean's parents were Geraldine (née Blewitt) Finnegan and Ambrose Joseph Finnegan from Scranton, Pennsylvania.[2] Ambrose was born in Olyphant, Pennsylvania in 1883, and attended Santa Clara University where he was a star quarterback on their football team. After college, he worked for real estate investor Major Bowes in San Francisco until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake wiped out his boss's investments. He then returned to the Scranton area where he worked for many years as a newspaper advertising salesman and then as librarian for two Scranton newspapers. He died in 1957.[75] In addition to Jean, Ambrose and Geraldine had a son, Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., who died in the Pacific theater of World War II.[76]
Jean was of Irish descent, with roots variously attributed to County Louth[77] and County Londonderry.[78][2]: 8 Irish genealogists presented Joe Biden with his Irish maternal family history on his visit there in 2016.[79] Joe's matrilineal great-grandfather (Geraldine's father), Edward Francis Blewitt,[80] the child of Irish emigrants from Rappagh, Ballina, County Mayo, was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate.[81][82] With all Joe Biden's maternal ancestors, and his paternal great-grandmother Mary Ann Hanafee, having purely Irish origins, this makes Joe Biden 62.5% of Irish descent.[83][84]