John McCain's family tree claim is "baloney"

John McCain, veteran war hero: yes. But a descendant of Robert the Bruce? Baloney

· Doubt cast on presidential candidate's ancestral link
· It's a piece of wonderful fiction, says historian
Paul Lewis
The Guardian,
Friday March 21 2008
Article history

US senator John McCain and Robert the Bruce.

Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters, Hulton Archive

Of all the claims in support of John McCain's bid for the White House, perhaps none is quite as grand as this. As he arrived in London yesterday, the publishers of his new book insisted the Republican senator's family was descended from the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce.

For a veteran war hero staking his presidential campaign on military credentials, an ancestral link to a warrior who overcame the English to reclaim Scottish independence in 1314 has obvious appeal. But according to experts, the story may be no more than that. Asked by the Guardian to investigate McCain's family history, genealogists and medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as "wonderful fiction" and "baloney".

The McCain link to Scotland was first mooted several years ago, but resurfaced this week on the eve of his trip to the UK, when Gibson Square, the publishers behind the senator's book, Hard Call, announced that "John McCain's family is of Scottish-Irish descent and related to the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, on his mother's side".

The firm said the claim was sourced from the US presidential candidate's official website. But the ancestral link appears to originate from a 1999 family memoir, Faith of My Fathers. In it the senator said his great-grandparents "gave life to two renowned fighters, my great-uncle Wild Bill and my grandfather Sid McCain."

Wild Bill, he wrote, "joined the McCain name to an even more distinguished warrior family. His wife, Mary Louise Earle, was descended from royalty. She claimed as ancestors Scottish kings back to Robert the Bruce." The passage goes on to say that Mary Louise Earle was also "in direct descent" from Emperor Charlemagne.

Not so, according to Dr Katie Stevenson, a lecturer in medieval studies at the University of St Andrews. "What wonderful fiction," she said. "Mary Louise Earle's claims to descent from Robert the Bruce are likely to be fantasy. Earle is not a Scottish name. I think it is incredibly unlikely that name would be related to Robert the Bruce. Charlemagne and Robert the Bruce were not connected - that's ludicrous."

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Is McCain having fantasy problems? He said that Al-Qaeda is being trained in Iran, but Iran has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. He claims that insurgents in Iraq are members of Al-Qaeda tied to Osama but all the experts say Al-Qaeda in Iraq just borrowed the name and have one goal in Iraq, that is to get the US troops out. The experts also say that the Sunni and the Shia are united on two things. One is to get the coalition forces out of their country and the other is the hatred they have toward Al-Qaeda. These facts McCain and Bush never seem to be able to face. Looks like McCain is having trouble facing a lot of facts, along with memory issues and anger issues. Is he in denial?

My problem with McCain is that as a veteran, he should have voted on the side of veterans but failed them. This is my biggest issue with him. The other is that as a man who has been tortured, the rate of tortured people developing PTSD is 100%. The question is, how bad does he have it? What level is it? Classic signs are there. Can this be the reason he would not look at a Vietnam vet talking to him about having PTSD?