what state obama was born?
Hawaii
contradiction
 While attending a Russian language class , Dunham met Barack Obama , Sr. , the school 's first African student . At the age of 23 , Obama Sr. had come to Hawaii to pursue his education , leaving behind a pregnant wife and infant son in his home town of Nyang 'oma Kogelo in Kenya . Dunham and Obama Sr. were married on the Hawaiian island of Maui on February 2 , 1961 , despite parental opposition from both families . Dunham was three months pregnant . Obama Sr. eventually informed Dunham about his first marriage in Kenya but claimed he was divorced . Years later , she would discover this was false . Obama Sr. ' s first wife , Kezia , later said she had granted her consent for him to marry a second wife , in keeping with Luo customs . 

contradiction
 Abraham Lincoln was born February 12 , 1809 , the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln , in a one @-@ room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County , Kentucky ( now LaRue County ) . He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln , who migrated from Norfolk , England to Hingham , Massachusetts , in 1638 . Samuel 's grandson and great @-@ grandson began the family 's western migration , which passed through New Jersey , Pennsylvania , and Virginia . Lincoln 's paternal grandfather and namesake , Captain Abraham Lincoln , moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County , Kentucky in the 1780s . Captain Lincoln was killed in an Indian raid in 1786 . His children , including six @-@ year @-@ old Thomas , the future president 's father , witnessed the attack . After his father 's murder , Thomas was left to make his own way on the frontier , working at odd jobs in Kentucky and in Tennessee , before settling with members of his family in Hardin County , Kentucky , in the early 1800s . 

entailment
 On August 4 , 1961 , at the age of 18 , Dunham gave birth to her first child , Barack Obama II . Friends in the state of Washington recall her visiting with her month @-@ old baby in 1961 . She took classes at the University of Washington from September 1961 to June 1962 , and lived as a single mother in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle with her son while her husband continued his studies in Hawaii . When Obama Sr. graduated from the University of Hawaii in June 1962 , he was offered a scholarship to study in New York City , but declined it , preferring to attend the more prestigious Harvard University . He left for Cambridge , Massachusetts , where he would begin graduate study at Harvard in the fall of 1962 . Dunham returned to Honolulu and resumed her undergraduate education at the University of Hawaii with the spring semester in January 1963 . During this time , her parents helped her raise the young Obama . Dunham filed for divorce in January 1964 , which Obama Sr. did not contest . In December 1964 , Obama Sr. married Ruth Baker , a Jewish American of Lithuanian heritage ; they were separated in 1971 and divorced in 1973 after having two sons . In 1965 , Obama Sr. received a MA in economics from Harvard . In 1971 , he came to Hawaii for a month and visited his son Barack , then 10 years old ; it was the last time he would see his son , and their only major personal interaction . In 1982 , Obama Sr. was killed in a car accident . 

contradiction
 The family 's frequent moves later spawned accusations that Chester Arthur was not a native @-@ born citizen of the United States . When Arthur was nominated for vice president in 1880 , a New York attorney and political opponent , Arthur P. Hinman , initially speculated that Arthur was born in Ireland and did not come to the United States until he was fourteen years old . Had that been true , opponents might have argued that Arthur was constitutionally ineligible for the vice presidency under the United States Constitution 's natural @-@ born @-@ citizen clause . When Hinman 's original story did not take root , he spread a new rumor that Arthur was born in Canada . This claim , too , failed to gain credence . 

entailment
 In a 2006 interview , Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family : " It 's like a little mini @-@ United Nations " , he said . " I 've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac , and I 've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher . " Obama has a half @-@ sister with whom he was raised ( Maya Soetoro @-@ Ng , the daughter of his mother and her Indonesian second husband ) and seven half @-@ siblings from his Kenyan father 's family — six of them living . Obama 's mother was survived by her Kansas @-@ born mother , Madelyn Dunham , until her death on November 2 , 2008 , two days before his election to the Presidency . Obama also has roots in Ireland ; he met with his Irish cousins in Moneygall in May 2011 . In Dreams from My Father , Obama ties his mother 's family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis , President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War . 
