I am in the midst of examining and grading an assortment of personal pedigree assignments for my personal genomics course. It is always interesting to see the complexity of reality, particularly reality in a place that has considerable diversity in many respects like Wellesley. With these thoughts in my head, I thought this slideshow of some of President Obama’s extended family was pretty interesting to look at. I have used the picture below (typically with the President’s head hidden at first, asking if anyone can identify the man on the left) in my classes in discussions of race and ancestry and found it to be effectively confounding/surprising to students:
This is also a good chance to link to my previous exploration of real-world family structures…
