Newly Swissed Online Magazine

Breaking News: Obama has Swiss Roots!

As a reader of Newly Swissed, you are among the first to find out about a surprising revelation by the Swiss village of Ried! This is no joke but apparently, they had long suspected to be the origin of Obama's distant relatives prior to their moving to the Alsace region in the 18th century!

Based on intensive research by a genealogist, Ried has made a link between President Obama and one of their own villagers. No further details have been made public at this point, but according to this article, the villager's son Christian had emigrated to the US where his last name "Gutknecht" turned into "Goodknight", which became "Goodnight". This is also the name of Obama's maternal family... Either way, Obama has been pronounced an honorary citizen of Ried at this point!

[After finding out about the connection] we went back to work. We aren’t going to stop working because of this. Nothing has changed. (Heinz Etter via swissinfo.ch)

Even though the village of Ried seems to be all cool about it, this news came quite to my surprise and I don't think that it has trickled down to Obama just yet. There will actually be an official press conference on July 13 and you are sure to hear more about Obama's new-found Swissness in the mainstream media of your choice!

What's your take on this? Let's get a discussion going...

Dimitri Burkhard

As the founder, editor, and community manager of Newly Swissed, Dimitri owns the strategic vision. He is passionate about storytelling and is a member of Swiss Travel Communicators. Dimitri loves discovering new trends and covers architecture, design, start-ups and tourism.

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Dimitri Burkhard

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