George Bush is a Swede

George W. Bush is Swedish. Partly, at least, according to the Swedish Colonial Society, which has researched the president's ancestors going back ten generations.

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The organisation, the oldest Swedish historical society in the United States, found a direct link between America's first family and one Måns Andersson, who left Gothenburg on the ship Kalmer Nyckel in October 1639. Andersson arrived in the New Sweden colony on the banks of the Delaware river a few months later.

"George W. Bush and his family are very interested in this information. These are their oldest-known European roots," said David Emmi at the Swedish Colonial Society to Svenska Dagbladet.

Måns Andersson dedicated himself to growing tobacco. He built up his own farm, which he named Silleryd, indicating to the researchers that he originally hailed from Sillerud in Värmland.

The Swedish Colonial Society was founded in 1909 with King Gustaf as the first High Patron. The aim was to record the history of the first colonial Swedish settlement in America.

But whether the latest historical news will lead Sweden to embrace the US president as one of their own remains to be seen.

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Louis Roper