Elizabeth Demarest/John Browning and Barack Obama Connection

This is a stale thread, but it has become of interest again because of published genealogies that attempt to trace Presidential candidate Barack Obama to Edward Earle of New Jersey through the John Browning/Elizabeth Demarest line via a son James.

Birth dates for the children of this couple are posted in this thread, as are collective doubts regarding "name's the same" identification of two possible John Brownings in the colonial slaveholding states, and the contents of the two primary source documents to which I make reference.

I must concur with researchers here that the time frames simply do not line up for all of the children attributed to this couple by various published genealogies to be actual descendants.Those which are not documented are particularly onerous.

I consider the Greene County will to be definitive, particularly since the one child left out of the stirpes distribution, Joshua, was named and left his dollar.The James Browning who married Susannah Hickman, if indeed he did not die until 1812, would have been living at the time this will was made.Said James is not mentioned in the will.If he was born in 1745, as researchers claim and as the birth of a daughter Annie in 1773 demands, he just does not fit.

The Bible records filed with the NSDAR confirm the same suspicion.James belongs elsewhere.

Elizabeth Demarest was the daughter of Elsje "Alice" Earle, baptised 1701, with her second husband, Jan Demarest, also baptised 1701.The birth of Elizabeth to this couple is well within the range of plausibility, and Elizabeth's parentage is not at issue here.Elsje has a proved first marriage or association with Philadelphian George Simmons on 23 Mar 1729 in Hackensack (unless, of course, this was a banns publication for a marriage which did not then take place).It is speculated one child was born of this marriage, say 1729-1730.The earliest Elizabeth could be born after a second marriage would be say 1731-1732, possibly as late as 1735-1737, and this is consistent with the birth information on her children (date range 1752-1775--if she was aged ca 45 at the birth of the last she would have been born ca 1730, and a first child in ca 1752 is also consistent with her own birth no later than ca 1737).

This being the case, and with the close grouping of the children until the last (suspect there were at least two late children who miscarried), how likely is it for her to have had a child at the age of 12 years, even though married?Was it possible the 1744 marriage date was a formal betrothal?Or, again, bogus or invented?I am suspecting the marriage of John Browning and Elizabeth Demarest actually occurred in abt 1750-1751.

My years of experience tell me the James Browning who married Susannah Hickman is not a child of this marriage.