US News
US President Bush has Swedish ancestors: report
By DPA
Apr 3, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Stockhom - US President George W Bush has Swedish ancestors, reports said Monday quoting research conducted by a US-based genealogical society.

The Swedish Colonial Society said it has traced the president\'s ancestors to the 10th generation and discovered a link between Bush and Mans Andersson, who left Sweden in October 1639.

Andersson sailed from the port city Gothenburg on the ship Kalmar Nyckel to the Swedish colony New Sweden on the Delaware river on the eastern seaboard of the United States, the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet said.

\'George W Bush and his relatives are very interested in this information. These are their oldest known European roots,\' David Emmi of the Swedish Colonial Society told the newspaper.

Andersson started to farm tobacco and built a farm that he named Silleryd. Researchers believe that the farm could be named after Sillerud in the western Swedish province Varmland.

According to the research, Andersson was married twice. His second wife was also the daughter of a Swedish immigrant. They had six children including a son, Christoper Mansson, born around 1652.

Mansson had eight children by two marriages including Ann Mounts who in 1727 married Robert Mercer, who is an ancestor of the Bush family.

The Swedish Colonial Society was established 1909 in Pennsylvania. Its main task is to \'collect, preserve and publish materials relating to the history of the Swedes and Finns in America.\'

Some 20 million Americans are estimated to have Swedish ancestry. President Bush visited Sweden briefly in June 2001 during the Swedish presidency of the European Union.

The society\'s web site www.colonialswedes.org offers more details.