Government and PoliticsWatergate |
Are the Bushes the first father-son presidents? |
No, the nation’s 41st (George H. W. Bush) and 43rd (George W. Bush) presidents were preceded as father-son presidents by John Adams (1735–1826), the 2nd president of the United States, and John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the 6th.
There have been other presidents whose relatives held the office before them: Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president, was the grandson of the nation’s 9th, William Henry Harrison. Zachary Taylor, the 12th president, and James Madison, the 4th, were second cousins. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was preceded in the office by his distant cousin, Teddy Roosevelt. Genealogists determined that FDR had ties to 10 other presidents as well, four of them were blood relatives and six were relatives by marriage: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, William Henry Harrison, Benjamin Harrison, James Madison, William Howard Taft, Zachary Taylor, Martin Van Buren, and George Washington.