Future first lady had illiterate ancestor

CHICAGO, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Census records show the woman who will soon become first lady of the United States is the great-great granddaughter of an illiterate South Carolina slave.

Jim Robinson, who worked on the sprawling Friendfield rice plantation in Georgetown, S.C., turned out to be the last illiterate member of Michelle Obama's family tree, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday.

The newspaper says records show each generation of Robinsons became more educated than the last with Michelle Obama and her brother earning undergraduate degrees from Princeton and Michelle going on to obtain a law degree from Harvard.

A new biography of Michelle Obama by Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy says her undergraduate years at Princeton helped shape her world view, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Mundy writes: "The question of what upper-income blacks owe to the less fortunate was a major preoccupation" of Michelle Obama, as evidenced by her senior thesis, "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community