Records shed light on candidates' ancestors

Obama speaks of Payne and his daughter, nicknamed Toot, in his memoirs. Toot was Obama's grandmother.

"Toot's family was respectable," he wrote. "Her father held a steady job all through the Depression, managing an oil lease for Standard Oil.

"The family kept their house spotless and ordered Great Books through the mail; they read the Bible but generally shunned the tent revival circuit, preferring a straight-backed form of Methodism that valued reason over passion and temperance over both."

Obama's denomination is the United Church of Christ.

Clinton's Scranton tradition
Born in Durham, England, to a Welsh miner, Hugh S. Rodham emigrated with his family to the U.S. and worked for the Scranton Lace Co. for a third of the company's 105-year existence.

His son, Hugh E. Rodham, joined his dad at the mill before leaving for Chicago to start his own drapery business.

He brought his children, including Hillary, back to Scranton for their christening.

Scranton Lace was once the world's largest producer of Nottingham lace. It used huge European looms to weave swaths of flowers, ferns and geometric shapes, according to Southern Textile News.

"The Scranton of my father's youth was a rough industrial city of brick factories, textile mills, coal mines, rail yards and wooden duplex houses," Clinton wrote in her memoirs.

Scranton Lace hung on longer than other relics from the boom years, closing in 2002 and putting a shrunken work force of 50 out of jobs.

Hugh S. Rodham's 1942 draft registration lists categories of complexion for applicants to check. Their choices were sallow, light, ruddy, dark, freckled, light brown, dark brown and black.

Rodham said he was ruddy.

Picking the president: The candidates Click to visit that candidate's MSNBC page or click the XML symbol for an RSS feed. John McCain                Barack Obama

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