When Barack Obama accepts the Democrat Party nomination for U.S. president at tonight’s Democrat Party Convention in Denver, Colo., few people will realize that the U.S. senator from Illinois has ancestorial roots in Chautauqua and Montgomery counties.

Several weeks ago, the Montgomery County Chronicle published a story about Obama’s grandmother, 85-year-old Madelyn Dunham, who resides in Honolulu, Hawaii. Dunham raised Obama from the age of 10, and Obama has often referred to his grandmother’s caring attributes in his political speeches.

Dunham, formerly Madelyn Lee Payne, was born in Peru in Chautauqua County in 1925 to Rolla Payne and Leona McMurry. The Payne family spent most of their years in Chautauqua County. Madelyn’s grandparents, Thomas Creekmore McMurry and Margaret Belle Wright, who would be Obama’s great-grandparents were well-known in Peru and both are buried in the Peru Cemetery.

The Payne family moved to Butler County when Madelyn was 3 years old, and it was in the El Dorado and Augusta area where Madelyn spent the bulk of her childhood and youth years before marrying Stanley Dunham and moving to Hawaii.

Now, members of the Dunham family have traced Obama’s roots to the Havana community.

Judy Carra, a Havana native now living in Independence, Mo., provided information to the Montgomery County Chronicle this week that shows Obama’s connection to the Dunham clan of Havana. Obama’s grandfather was Stanley Dunham. Stanley Dunham’s grandparents, or Obama’s great-grandparents, were Jacob W. Dunham and Mary Ann (Hollowell) Dunham (ironically, two of Jacob W. Dunham’s brothers married the other two sisters of Mary Ann Dunham, making three Dunham boys marrying three Hollowell girls). Jacob W. Dunham’s parents were Jacob Mackey Dunham and Louisa Stroup Dunham.

Jacob Mackey Dunham, who is Obama’s great-great-grandfather, was the eldest brother to David Dunham. David Dunham, and his wife, Lavonia Bonecutter, moved from Indiana, to the Havana area in the 1870s and were regarded as being among the first generation of settlers in the Havana community. David Dunham, who would be Obama’s great-great-great-uncle, is buried in the Havana Cemetery with many of his descendants.

Carra said the Dunham name continues in the Montgomery County area through Marvin Dunham, who is a descendant of David Dunham.

“Obama is a decedent from Jacob Dunham, the brother of David Dunham, which indirectly makes Obama a ‘shirt tail cousin’ umpteen times removed,” said Carra in an e-mail this week. “It’s interesting to be a distant relative to Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president. I did not realize that genealogy could be this interesting.”