Hillary Clinton Family History

Hillary Clinton was born Hillary Diane Rodham on October 26th, 1947 to Hugh and Dorothy Rodham in Chicago, Illinois.  Hillary was the eldest of their three children.  Her father’s business in draperies prospered and the family moved out to the affluent Park Ridge suburb in 1950.

Hugh was Republican is his political views.  So initially was Hillary.  But when she attended Wellesley College in the mid-1960’s, her views began to change.  She became more liberal in her outlook.

After graduation in 1969 she enrolled at Yale Law School.  In the spring of 1971 she met for the first time a young law student from Arkansas by the name of Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton and the Arkansas Years.  When law school was over, she had many attractive job offers.  But as she later wrote: “I chose to follow my heart instead of my head.”  And she followed Bill Clinton to Arkansas,

Hillary became the first director of a new legal aid clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law.  She eventually took the plunge and married Bill in 1975.

Bill by now was pursuing his political ambitions and became Governor of Arkanas in 1982; and she First Lady while continuing her legal practice.  Ten years later came Bill’s 1992 US Presidential campaign.

During this campaign she had to deal with Bill’s wandering eye for the ladies (as she had to do later with the Monica Lewinsky affair).  In both cases she stood by her husband.   Bill survived and won the election.

First Lady.  Hillary was First Lady from 1993 to 2001 and played an active role in the administration’s policies.  Her main involvement was in healthcare.  She was unsuccessful there.  But she had more success in promoting women’s rights.  Her book It Takes A Village became a New York Tmes best seller.

Later Politics.  By the time that Bill and Hillary left the White House in 2001, Hillary was an experienced politician.  She won the New York Senate tace in 2000 and was re-elected in 2006.

Then she announced her US Presidential ambitions.  However, she was beaten in a tight race for the Democratic nomination by Barack Obama.  When Obama was elected President in 2008, she became his Secretary of State.

In 2016 Hillary had another tilt at the Presidency.  This time she did become the Democratic nominee and she appeared to be the clear favorite in the Presidential race.  However, she lost that narrowly to Donald Trump.  Trump’s victory in 2016 was the start of his ascendancy in American politics, much to the anguish of Democrats.

Following her loss, Hillary has continued to comment on the state of American politics.  She has written books and taken up particular causes.

Rodhams in England

Hillary’s Rodham name is a name of NE England, found first in Northumberland and then in Durham.  Her ancestors here go from gentry class to coal mining.

Northumberland.  The Rodham name was more usually Roddam in Northumberland.  Roddam here refers to a village near the Cheviot hills and the small town of Wooler.  The name itself means “at the forest clearings.”

An old Northumberland gentry family, based in Houghton, held lands at Roddam from early times and took the Roddam name.

Robert Roddam of this family joined the British Royal Navy and rose to be Vice-Admiral of the Fleet in 1787.  Curiously his first wife was a Clinton, the daughter of George Clinton who was Governor of New York in 1750 (but this Clinton has no relation to Bill Clinton).

Robert’s English home was Roddam Hall, a country house that was built by his father in Roddam village.  Roddam Hall still stands.

Durham.  A branch of this family migrated to Durham and here the name became Rodham.  Hugh Rodham from Northumberland married Anne Hutchinson in Stanhope, Durham in 1741.  His Rodhams were not so grand.  The line from Hugh and Anne went as follows:

• – Joseph Rodham from Stanhope (1746-1822) m. Dorothy Bell
• – Jonathan Rodham from Birtley (1779-1861) m. Margaret Orange
• – Joseph Rodham from Tanfield (1817-1874) m. Elizabeth Scurfield
• – Jonathan Rodham from Craghead (1843-1917) m. Isabella Bell.

These Rodhams became miners in the Durham coal fields.  Later they would hear of the higher wages being offered in the Pennsylvania coal mines.  So Jonathan decided to leave his small overcrowded Wagtail Cottage in Oxhill.  He set off with his large family in 1881 for America on the Alaska.

Some Rodham miners did remain in Durham, such as the Rodhams of Joseph’s brother Ralph.  However, they had to move east for work as the inland mines became exhausted.

Rodhams in America

Pennsylvania.  Jonathan and his family came to the coal-mining town of Scranton in Lackawanna county, Pennsylvania.  But the cottage they lived in was little bigger than the one they had vacated in Durham.  It was also at times subject to river flooding.

Jonathan became a beat cop in the North Scranton precinct.  His son Hugh, born in 1879 and Hillary’s grandfather, found work as a teenager in the lace factory.  He worked there all his life until he retired in 1944.

This Hugh had fallen in love with a Welsh woman named Hannah Jones.  They married in 1902 and the couple had a son, also called Hugh, in 1911.

They are shown in the 1940’s above with Hugh’s daughter Hillary.

Chicago.   Hugh Sr. had three sons – Willard, Hugh and Russell.  Willard remained in Scranton.  Hugh and Russell migrated to Chicago to seek a better life.

Russell, a physician, was considered the brightest of the three.  But tragically he burned to death after an easy chair in which he was sitting caught fire in the basement of an apartment building he owned.

Hugh arrived in Chicago in the late 1930’s and met and married his wife Dorothy there.  After the war he started a drapery supply business out of the Merchandise Mart building.  The business prospered and the family moved out to the affluent Park Ridge suburb in 1950.

Hugh himself was conservative in his views and a supporter of the Republican party.  But Hillary and Hugh, brought up in the sixties, had a more liberal outlook and both would run for political office as Democrats.

The Howell Line

Hillary’s mother was born Dorothy Howell in Chicago in 1919.  Her Howell ancestors came from Pembrokeshire in Wales where Benjamin Howell was born around the year 1802.

His son Edwin, born in 1846, was listed at different times in Somerset (Bedminster), Bristol, and Glamorgan in Wales  The censuses recorded him over the years as a ship’s carpenter and a storekeeper.

Howells in America.  Edwin’s son Edwin Jr, born in 1867, decided to emigrate and came to America as a young man in 1886.  In 1894 he married in Elgin, Illinois and his son, another Edwin, was born there in 1897.

This Edwin became a Chicago firefighter.  He and his wife Della had two girls, Dorothy (Hillary’s mother) and Isabelle.  However, the marriage fell apart and they divorced in 1927.  Dorothy and Isabelle went to live with their Howell grandparents in Alhambra mear Los Angeles on the West Coast.

Dorothy graduated from Alhambra High School in 1937 and moved back to Chicago.  Her mother by that time had remarried and did not want to resume their relationship.  But Dorothy did meet a man of interest at that time.  His name was Hugh Rodham and they married after a lengthy courtship in 1942.

 

Hillary Clinton’s Family Tree

• The Rodham Line 

• Jonathan Rodham, coal miner (1843-1917) m. Isabella Bell (1849-1917) in Durham, England in 1867 and moved to Pennsylvania in 1881
• – Dr. Thomas Rodham (1868-1948) m. Georgia Lackey, born in Durham
• – Margaret Rodham (1871-1958)
• – Joseph Rodham (1874-1945)
• – William Rodham (1876-1945)
• – Hugh Rodham (1879-1965)
• – Elizabeth Rodham (1881-1944) m. Christopher Haswell
• – Robert Rodham (1883-1944) m. Anna May Wittig (but abandoned her), born in Pennsylvania
• – Wade Rodham (1885-1940) m. Laura Snyder
• – Ethel Rodham (1888-1956) m. Fred Walker
• – George Rodham (1889-1954) m. Adaline Brown, a Scranton councilman of dubious repute

• Hugh Rodham from Durham in England moved to Pennsylvania in 1881 and m. Hannah (Anna) Jones from a Welsh family (1882-1952) in Binghamton, New York in 1902
• – Willard Rodham (1906-1965), remained in Scranton
• – Hugh Rodham (1911-1993), migrated to Chicago
• – Dr. Russell Rodham (1918-1962), migrated to Chicago but later died in an apartment blaze

• Hugh Rodham from Scranton, Pennsylvania, a ,textile businessman moved to Chicago in 1937 and m. Dorothy Howell (1919-2011) in 1942.  They moved to Park Ridge, a Chicago suburb, in 1950
• – Hillary Clinton nee Rodham (b. 1947)
• – Hugh Rodham (b. 1950), lawyer and Democrat politician, m. Maria Arias from Cuba
• – Anthony (Tony) Rodham (1954-2019) m. Nicole Boxer and Megan Madden

• Hillary Rodham moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas and m. Bill Clinton from Arkansas (b. 1946) in 1975.  They came to Washington DC in 1992 after Bill became US President.
• – Chelsea Clinton (b. 1980), writer m. Marc Mezvinsky (b. 1977) in upstate New York in 2010.  They have three children – Charlotte, Aidan and Jasper.

• The Howell Line

• Edwin Howell Jr. from Bristol in England (1867-1941) came to America in 1886 and m. Emma Monk from Canada (1874-1940) in  Elgin, Illinois in 1894.  They moved in the 1920’s to Alhambra, California
• – Edwin Howell III (1897-1946)