Bill Clinton / Ian Hancock

Private User

11/22/2019 at 11:58 PM

I propose that we remove William J. Clinton, 42nd President of the USA from this project.

When Ian Hancock made this claim in the 1990s, he did not offer any evidence, and instead argued that Clinton *might* be a descendant of the Scottish Blythes, who have historic Romani ties. But we now know that Clinton actually descends from the Yorkshire Blythes, so his guess appears to be wrong.

Unfortunately, a number of Hancock's ancestral guesses have been found to be wrong or unproven. He's a *wonderful* scholar of Romani history and language, but 1) he's not a genealogist and 2) people have consistently interpreted his self-acknowledged guesses as fact. It looks like we have a number of his proposed-but-unproven Romani in this project, so I would urge caution with that moving forward.

Private User

11/23/2019 at 12:17 AM

For reference, Hancock's claim is that Clinton descends from Andrew Blythe, the brother of Charles Blythe -- the King of the Scottish Gypsies crowned in 1847. But Clinton's Blythes have been in America since Colonial Virginia, and his actual Andrew Blythe ancestor was born in South Carolina in 1801.

In "We Are the Romani People," 2002, p. 127, Hancock acknowledged that he had no evidence for his claims regarding Yul Brynner, Ava Gardner, Elvis Presley, Mother Teresa, John Bunyan, Pablo Picasso, Richard Burton, and Clark Gable. We have some (all?) of those names on the project index, so I assume they must be included and should be reevaluated as well.

Private User

11/23/2019 at 5:08 AM

I appreciate this being brought to our attention, Ashley. Seeing Clinton, Richard Burton, and Elvis, etc., on the Project list had me wondering about it.

Malka Mysels C

11/23/2019 at 5:26 PM

Private User Thank you for alerting us to this issue. Please feel free to edit, add/remove any profile in the project without sufficient hard evidence. However it is a shame to find that Roma roots still have a negative connotation given the huge contribution they have made to society music and the arts.

Private User

11/23/2019 at 5:30 PM

Malka Mysels No one here said anything negative about Roma roots.

Malka Mysels C

11/23/2019 at 5:34 PM

Sorry, please forgive me, I absolutely didn't mean to imply at all that anyone said anything negative about the Roma in this discussion, I was just making a general statement. In fact, the following article is very optimistic that attitudes are beginning to change.

'A place to call our own': Europe's first Roma cultural centre opens in Berlin
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/08/roma-artists-launch-a...

Bill Clinton / Ian Hancock

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