DNA test proves President Harding and his mistress Britton borne a child

Former U.S. President Warren Harding is pictured in this undated Library of Congress handout photo obtained by Reuters July 22, 2014. On July 29, 2014, after a 50-year court seal expires, the Library of Congress will put online a trove of about 1,000 pages of sometimes-steamy love letters between Harding, who died in office in 1923, and his mistress Carrie Phillips. Reuters/Library of Congress/Handout via Reuters

DNA test results have proved that Warren G. Harding, the 29 th President of the United States, was a father to a child born out of wedlock. According to AncestryDNA, a genetic testing firm, the president had a child out of his long-rumoured relationship with mistress Nan Britton.

Britton grabbed the attention of the public during the Jazz Age in the late ‘20s when she spoke up about her forbidden White House love affair. She published her story in the best-selling memoir, “The President’s Daughter,” in 1927. Historians kept questioning her claims, while Harding’s defenders declared her a liar for about 90 long years.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported the findings of the genetic tests, according to which, the DNA from Britton’s grandson and descendants of Harding were examined. The results were 99.9 percent certain that Harding had a child with Britton.

The child born from the Harding-Britton relationship, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, was the only known offspring of the president, died in 2005 after her mother in 1991. James Blaesing, grandson of Britton, grew up hearing his grandfather’s story and always had an esteemed desire to prove his grandmother’s innocence in front of the people of the country.

He was happy to get the DNA results. “You know what this is? It’s a love story,” he said about his grandparents. “It was true love, especially on her side, and I know he felt the same way. And he got trapped.”

The Harding-Britton affair started in when the president was still a heartthrob senator from Ohio. Harding stated his career as a senator in 1897. The relationship continued when he became the premier of the country. The bond ended with the sudden death of Harding in 1923. Harding married Florence Kling in 1891 until his death.

This was not a lone case in a political leader’s personal life. Thomas Jefferson was earlier proven to have had a sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemings.

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