The first John Bunch in Ancestry.com's Obama family tree is the first in a seven-generation line of Bunches, originally in Virginia, moving to Tennessee, Arkansas and finally to Kansas ...

Obama chuckles about her husband being the most active on their family text chain. "He's still typical [Dad]. You have these weird panic thoughts that your girls are out living in this messy world.

For more on Michelle Obama's family tree and Swarns' experiences researching for this project, watch the video above.

Interest in the family trees of Obama and his wife has served to upend assumptions, said Sheryll Cashin, a Georgetown University law professor who documented her research into her own family ...

The Ancestry.com historian said Obama's family tree is one of the "most fascinating" on which she has ever worked because it is "dynamic" and stretches across at least three continents.

The Obama family tree, by contrast, is a veritable ancestral Banyan, with roots and branches extending to four continents. There are many half-siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. That means there ...