The family of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States (2017–2021) and owner of The Trump Organization, is a prominent American family of German and Scottish descent.[1] They are active in business, entertainment, politics, and real estate. Donald Trump, his third wife Melania, and their son Barron were the first family for the duration of his presidency. Trump's father Fred was the son of German immigrants, while his mother Mary Anne MacLeod was a Scottish immigrant. Trump has five children from three wives, and ten grandchildren.
Ivana Marie Trump (née Zelníčková), the first wife of Donald Trump, was born on February 20, 1949, in Zlín, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). She was a fashion model and businesswoman who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1988.[2] They were married from 1977 until 1990.[3] Ivana Trump died at her home in New York City at age 73 on July 14, 2022.
Maples in 2007Marla Ann Maples (born October 27, 1963)[10] is an American actress, television personality, model, singer and presenter. She was the second wife of former U.S. PresidentDonald Trump. They married in 1993, two months after the birth of their daughter Tiffany, and divorced in 1999.[11][12]
Melania Trump (née Knavs), the third wife of Donald Trump, was born on April 26, 1970, in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia (present-day Slovenia). She had a lengthy modeling career and is the second foreign-born first lady of the United States, the first being Louisa Adams.[13] They were married in 2005. Melania became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2006.[14] She did not immediately move into the White House when her husband became president, but remained at Trump Tower with their son Barron until the end of the 2016–2017 school year.[15] He and his mother moved to the White House on June 11, 2017.
Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric are Trump's three eldest children, from his first marriage with Ivana Trump.[16]
Prior to the election, each of the siblings held the title of executive vice president at the Trump Organization. During the campaign, they served as surrogates for their father on national news programs. Following Trump's election victory, all three were named to the presidential transition team.[17]
Following the inauguration, DonaldJr. and Eric took charge of the family's real estate empire. Ivanka moved to Washington, D.C., with her husband Jared Kushner, who was appointed to a senior White House advisory position.[18]
In 2017 when his father took office as president, Barron and his mother remained in Manhattan to finish out the school year. In June, he and Melania moved to the White House and he enrolled in St. Andrew's Episcopal School, a private co-ed school in Potomac, Maryland.[26] In 2021 when his father left the White House and moved to Florida, he again finished out the school year, then went to Florida and enrolled in Oxbridge Academy, a private college-preparatory high school in West Palm Beach, Florida.[27]
Kallstadt, Germany, the Trump family's ancestral home
According to biographer Gwenda Blair, the family descended from an itinerant lawyer, Hanns Drumpf, who settled in Kallstadt, a village in the Palatinate, Germany, in 1608, and whose descendants changed their name from Drumpf to Trump during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).[32] The last name Trump is on record in Kallstadt since the 18th century.[33] Journalist Kate Connolly, visiting Kallstadt, found several variations in spelling of the surname in the village archives, including Drumb, Tromb, Tromp, Trum, Trumpff, and Dromb.[34] Even very diverse variations in spelling are common in German names before standardization as the wider population lacked literacy and names were transcribed from their spoken form rather than copied from documents.[citation needed]
Johannes Trump, born in the nearby village Bobenheim am Berg in 1789, had established himself by the early 1830s as a winegrower in Kallstadt where his grandson, Friedrich Trump, the grandfather of Donald Trump, was born in 1869.[33] Several of his descendants also were vintners in Kallstadt, one of many villages in the famous wine-growing region of the Palatinate (Pfalz).[32] Johannes Trump's sister Charlotte Louisa married Johann Georg Heinz. Their son Johann Heinrich (John Henry) Heinz (1811–1891), who emigrated to the United States in 1840, was the father of Henry J. Heinz (1844–1919), founder of the Heinz company and Donald Trump's second cousin twice removed.[35]
This German heritage was long concealed by Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, who had grown up in a mainly German-speaking environment until he was ten years old;[36] after World War II and until the 1980s, he told people he was of Swedish ancestry.[37] Donald Trump repeated this version in The Art of the Deal (1987) but later said he is "proud" of his German heritage, and served as grand marshal of the 1999 German-American Steuben Parade in New York City.[38][39]
Johann Paul Trump (1727–1792), married Maria Elisabetha Setzer[33]
Charlotte Louisa Trump (1789–1833), married Johann Georg Heinz
John Henry Heinz (1811–1891), emigrated to the United States in 1840, married Anna Margaretha Schmidt (1822–1899), emigrated to the United States in 1840[43]
Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump (1905–1999), born in New York, was a successful real estate developer in New York City.[58][59] Using their inheritance, Fred Trump and his mother Elizabeth founded E. Trump & Son in 1927.[60] The company grew to build and manage single-family houses in Queens, barracks and garden apartments for U.S. Navy personnel near major shipyards along the East Coast, and more than 27,000 apartments in New York City.[61] Trump was investigated by a U.S. Senate committee for profiteering in 1954,[62] and again by the State of New York in 1966.[63]
Donald Trump became the president of his father's real estate business in 1971, and renamed it the Trump Organization around 1973.[64] That year, Donald and his father were sued by the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division for violating the Fair Housing Act.[65] In the mid-1970s, Donald received loans from his father exceeding $14million (later claimed by Donald to have been only $1million).[66] Donald served as the Trump Organization's chairman and president until assuming the office of U.S. president.[67]
Born as Mary Anne MacLeod (1912–2000) in Tong, a small village near Stornoway, in the Western Isles of Scotland, she was a daughter of fisherman Malcolm MacLeod and Mary MacLeod (née Smith).[68] At age 17, she immigrated to the United States with $50 (equivalent to $887 in 2023), and moved in with a sister before starting work as a maid in New York.[68][69] Mary and Fred Trump met in New York and married in 1936, settling together in Queens. Mary became a U.S. citizen in 1942.[68][70] While visiting Scotland in June 2008, Donald Trump said in part, "I think I do feel Scottish."[38][39]
In 1885, Donald Trump's grandfather, Friedrich Trump, emigrated from Kallstadt, Palatinate (then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria), to the United States at age 16. He anglicized his name to Frederick in 1892 when he became a U.S. citizen.[58] During the Klondike Gold Rush, he amassed a fortune by opening a restaurant and hotel in Bennett and later Whitehorse, serving gold seekers on their way to the region; one biographer wrote that the business included a brothel, a portrayal Donald Trump has said was "totally false".[71] On attempting to return, Frederick was exiled by Germany in 1905 for his lack of mandatory military service and not giving authorities notice before his 1885 departure; an appeal was denied.[72] He died in the first wave of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918. After his death, his fortune was passed on to his wife and son.
Donald Trump's grandmother, Elizabeth Christ Trump, was born in 1880 and died on June 6, 1966. She married Frederick Trump in 1902 and moved to the United States with him. Like her husband, she was a native of Kallstadt, born as the daughter of Philipp and Marie Christ. Philipp Christ was descended from Johannes Christ (1626–1688/9) of Flörsheim, Hesse. Elizabeth Christ Trump was a descendant of organ builder Johann Michael Hartung (1708–1763) through her paternal grandmother Sabina Christ.[73]
Malcolm Macleod
Donald Trump's maternal grandfather, Malcolm "Calum" Macleod was born on December 27, 1866, and died on June 22, 1954. He was a crofter, fisherman and a compulsory officer.[74]
Mary Ann Smith Macleod
Donald Trump's maternal grandmother, Mary Ann was born on July 11, 1867, and died on December 17, 1963. She married Macleod on April 23, 1891, and had ten children with him.[75]
Frederick "Freddy" Crist [sic] TrumpJr. (1938–1981)[78][79] was Donald Trump's older brother. On September 26, 1981,[79] at the age of 42, he died from a heart attack.[80]
Elizabeth Trump Grau
Elizabeth Joan Trump Grau (born 1942) is an older sister of Donald Trump.[81] In 1989, she married film producer James Grau.[82] She worked as an administrative assistant for Chase Manhattan Bank,[82] before retiring to Florida.[83] She is the only living sibling of Donald Trump.[84]
Robert Trump
Robert Stewart Trump (1948–2020) was Donald Trump's younger brother.[85] He was a business executive who managed Trump Management Inc, the Trump Organization's real estate holdings outside Manhattan.[86][87] He was an investor in SHiRT LLC, one of two owners of Virginia-based CertiPathx which was awarded a $33million government contract in 2019.[88]
Robert Trump married Blaine Beard in 1980.[89] They were divorced in 2009 after Trump had left his wife for Trump Organization employee Ann Marie Pallan. He married Pallan in early 2020.[90] Trump died on August 15, 2020, at the age of 71.[91][92] According to The New York Times, he had been having brain bleeds after a recent fall.[93]
Trump's first cousin John W. Walter (1934–2018) was a son of father Fred's sister Elizabeth Trump and William Walter.[94][95] He worked for the Trump Organization for most of his life and was executive vice president of Trump Management, Inc.[96][94][97][98] He shared ownership of All County Building Supply & Maintenance Corp with Donald Trump, Maryanne Trump Barry, Elizabeth Trump Grau, and Robert Trump.[95][99] Walter also served as the mayor of Flower Hill, New York between 1988 and 1996, and as its historian from 1996 until his death in 2018.[100][101]
^"New concerns function with Queens capital". The Daily Star. April 16, 1927. p. 16. E. Trump & Son Company, Inc., of Jamaica, has been formed with $50,000 capital to deal in realty.
^"Village Letter – Spring 2018"(PDF). Village of Flower Hill. Spring 2018. Archived(PDF) from the original on January 14, 2021. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
^Kordes, John (March 29, 2018). "The Kordes Korner". Garden City News. Garden City, NY. Archived from the original on January 12, 2023. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
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