• Barack Obama's mother is Ann Dunham. She was born
on November 29, 1942 in Wichita, Kansas, to Stanley and Madelyn
Dunham.  Ann attended the University of Hawaii, where she met Barack
Obama Sr. The two were married in 1960 and gave birth to Barack Jr.
in 1961. In 1963 the couple divorced and Ann Obama then married oil
manager Lolo Soetoro, another University of Hawaii student from
Indonesia. In 1967, when Soetoro's student visa was revoked because
of political unrest in Indonesia, Dunham and Barack, then in first
grade, accompanied him back to Jakarta where Obama's half-sister,
Maya Soetoro was born. Four years later Barack Obama Jr. was sent
back to the United States to be raised by her parents.  Ann succumbed
to ovarian cancer on November 7th, 1995.


Barack Obama Jr. with his mother Ann Dunham Obama

 
Barack Obama Jr. with his mother, Indonesian step-father Lolo
Soetoro,
and his sister Maya Soetoro in Jakarta Indonesia in 1970


• Obama’s father is Barack Hussein Obama Sr.,
economist, born in Alego, Siaya District, Kenya in 1936.  He met Ann
Dunham while a student at the East-West Center of the University of
Hawaii.  The couple married in 1960 and divorced in 1963 when Obama
was two years old.
Barack Hussein Obama Sr. died in a car crash in Nairobi, Kenya in
1982, leaving three wives, six sons and a daughter, all but one of
his children live in Britain or the United States.  He is buried in
the village of his birth.


Barack Obama Sr.

 
Barack Obama Sr.



• Barack Obama’s maternal grandfather is Stanley Armour
Dunham, born on March 23, 1918 in Kansas, Missouri.  At age
8 he found the body of his mother, Ruth Armour Dunham, who had
committed suicide at age 26.  He worked on oil rigs during the Great
Depression and served in the Army during World War II.  He had an
itch for adventure, moving his family from Kansas to Texas to
Washington state and finally to Hawaii where he worked as a furniture
salesman.  He died on February 8, 1992 in Honolulu, Hawaii and is
buried in Punchbowl National Cemetery, Honolulu, Hawaii.

• Barack Obama’s maternal grandmother is Madelyn Lee Payne
Dunham, born in October 1922 in Wichita, Kansas.  She worked
on a bomber assembly line during the war and as vice-president of a
bank.  She passed away on the eve of the of the Presidential
Election, November 3rd,2008 in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii at the age of
86.



Barack Obama Jr. with his maternal grandparents at his high school
graduation.

 
Barack Obama Jr. with his grandparents Madelyn and Stanley Dunham.


• Obama’s paternal grandfather is Hussein Onyango
Obama.  He was born in 1895 in Kenya and died in 1979.

• McCain's father, Admiral John S. "Jack" McCain Jr., Naval Academy
class of 1931, won the Silver Star for his command of two submarines
during World War II. 


John McCain with his father Admiral John S. McCain Jr. 


• McCain's mother Roberta Wright McCain, was born on
February 7, 1912 with her twin sister, Rowena, in Muskogee, Oklahoma. 
She married John S. McCain, Jr., on January 21, 1933, in Caesar's Bar,
Tijuana, Mexico.
Roberta McCain, now aged 96 is still active and visible, during her
son's 2008 presidential campaign.


John McCain's mother, Roberta Wright McCain


• Paternal grandfather, Rear Admiral John S. "Slew" McCain,
 born in Carroll County, Mississippi, August 9, 1884, the
son of John Sidney and Elizabeth-Ann Young McCain.  He was a student
at the University of Mississippi, 1901-02, graduated from the United
States Naval Academy in 1906 and the Navy War College in 1929.  He
married Katherine Vaulx, August 9, 1909. Their children were: John
Sidney, James Gordon, Katherine Vaulx. He was a grizzled old sea dog
who commanded aircraft carriers in the Pacific during World War II 
most notably as a commander of the Fast Carrier Task Force. He bet on
horses, drank bourbon and water, and rolled his own cigarettes with
one hand.  McCain's exceedingly skillful tactics protecting Canberra
(CA-70) and Houston (CL-81) in October 1944 earned him the Navy
Cross. He witnessed the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in
Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945.


John McCain's grandfather, John S. "Slew" McCain


While the majority of his service was reportedly excellent, a lapse
in McCain's leadership of his forces significantly contributed to the
Allied defeat and heavy losses in one of the naval battles around
Guadalcanal. McCain had been requested to conduct extra
reconnaissance missions over "The Slot" in the Solomon Islands on
August 8, 1942. For reasons never explained, McCain failed to order
the missions as requested, and furthermore, didn't inform the Allied
naval commanders at Guadalcanal that they weren't carried out. As a
result, Allied naval forces were surprised and defeated in the Battle
of Savo Island on August 9, a defeat that jeopardized the entire
Guadalcanal operation for the Allies. 
Admiral John "Slew" McCain died on Sept. 6, 1945 and is buried in
Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC.