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- The video revisits a hypothetical American monarchy seven years after the original episode. Matt Baker revisits George Washington’s family tree with new genealogical findings, timed to the United States’ 250th anniversary in 2026. The question of who would be king is deliberately speculative; the actual purpose is to explore Washington’s relatives, descendants, and connections to American history.
- George Washington had no known biological children, making his hypothetical succession uncertain. The original video examined three possible lines: those of his older half-brother Augustine, his adopted grandson George Washington Parke Custis, and the relatives who inherited Mount Vernon. The updated family tree expands this to six branches, corresponding to six executors named in Washington’s will.
- Martha Washington’s first marriage established the Parke Custis family line. Approximately 30 years before Washington became president, he married Martha, a wealthy widow whose first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, had died two years earlier. Martha had four children with Daniel, but only one, John Parke Custis, survived to adulthood.
- John Parke Custis’s early death left his children in the care of the Washingtons. He married Eleanor Calvert a year before the Revolutionary War began and had several children. He died approximately two weeks after the British surrender at Yorktown, probably from typhus contracted at a military camp. His two youngest children, George and Nelly, were adopted by their grandmother Martha and their step-grandfather George Washington.
- The descendants of Robert E. Lee would hypothetically have inherited the American crown through the Parke Custis line. George Washington Parke Custis had only one daughter, Mary, with his wife, Mary, who survived to adulthood. She married Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general. If Washington had become king, named his adopted son as heir, and all subsequent marriages and births had remained unchanged, Lee’s descendants would theoretically have succeeded to the throne.
- Robert E. Lee V is identified as the current hypothetical heir through the Parke Custis line. Robert E. Lee IV, identified as the heir in the original video, has since died, leaving the position to his son, Robert E. Lee V. Baker deliberately withholds photographs and personal information about living individuals in the family tree and asks viewers not to contact them about claiming a throne.
- George Washington Parke Custis may have had a relatively recent connection to British royalty. Eleanor Calvert’s father, Benedict Calvert, may have been an illegitimate grandchild of King George I. If that genealogy is correct, Custis would have had a royal connection much closer in time than the distant royal ancestry common in many European family trees.
- Bushrod Washington received the bulk of George Washington’s estate and personal papers. Washington’s detailed will left bequests to numerous relatives, but his principal property at Mount Vernon and all his personal papers went to his nephew Bushrod Washington. Bushrod was also a justice of the United States Supreme Court, making him an especially prominent member of the family.
- The name Bushrod came from his mother’s maiden name and has a connection to the name Bushfield. Baker explains that Bushrod was his mother’s maiden surname and that the Old English element rod meant a clearing. He therefore connects the name’s meaning to Bushfield, which was also the name of the Bushrod plantation.
- Bushrod Washington had no official white children, a qualification to Baker’s earlier statement that he had no children. After Bushrod’s death, Mount Vernon passed to his nephew John A. Washington II and subsequently to John A. Washington III. The latter was the final member of the Washington family to own the estate.
- Mount Vernon became a historical site after its sale in 1858. John A. Washington III sold the former presidential residence to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, a charitable organization that has operated it as a historic site ever since. In an alternative monarchy, Baker imagines three additional kings named John followed by a Queen Mary; following Mary Shaffner’s death, he identifies her son Larry as the hypothetical heir through this branch.
- John A. Washington III and 11 other close relatives of George Washington fought for the Confederacy. Baker notes that all 12 close relatives he refers to served on the Southern side during the Civil War. He argues that their allegiance should not be considered surprising given the family’s Virginia background and its involvement in slavery, including George Washington himself.
- Bushrod Washington inherited approximately 80 enslaved people when he took possession of Mount Vernon in 1802. This occurred after Martha Washington’s death. One of those enslaved people was West Ford, a mixed-race man whom Bushrod freed in 1805 and appointed manager of Mount Vernon. Ford held that position until the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association took over the estate.
- West Ford’s parentage remains disputed, but his father was probably a member of the Washington family. His mother was Venus, an enslaved woman held by John A. Washington, Bushrod’s father. Some have claimed that George Washington fathered Ford, but Baker says most historians disagree, citing the widespread belief that Washington was infertile and the fact that Venus was enslaved at Bushfield rather than Mount Vernon.
- Bushrod Washington is presented as a plausible alternative candidate for West Ford’s father. Baker notes that Bushrod treated Ford unusually well and that the two men resembled each other. Since Bushrod was John A. Washington’s son, he fits the broader possibility that Ford’s father was a male-line Washington, although the evidence does not establish paternity conclusively.
- The discussion of West Ford highlights the coercion inherent in slavery. Baker emphasizes that a relationship between an enslaver and an enslaved woman cannot be considered consensual, even where direct violence is not documented. He also states that African American descendants of enslaved people commonly have approximately 20–25% European DNA, reflecting the historical consequences of slavery and unequal power.
- West Ford’s descendants belong on the broader Washington family tree if the proposed male-line ancestry is correct. Baker argues that, regardless of whether Ford’s father was George, Bushrod, or another Washington, the paternal connection places Ford’s descendants within the extended family. This inclusion challenges a narrow family tree based solely on officially recognized white descendants.
- George William Ford became a notable military descendant of West Ford. Ford’s grandson was among America’s early Buffalo Soldiers, members of an all-Black military unit. He later managed several national cemeteries and served as a major during the Spanish-American War.
- West Ford’s living descendants held a family reunion in the year before the video. Baker shows a photograph of some attendees and imagines an alternative history in which a king in West Ford’s line abolished slavery and named Ford as his heir. In that scenario, a present-day descendant of Ford could theoretically be America’s monarch.
- George Washington’s six executors represented six major family branches. The will named William Washington for the line of half-brother Augustine; Martha Washington for the Parke Custis line; Lawrence Lewis for sister Betty’s line; George Steptoe Washington for brother Samuel’s line; Bushrod Washington for brother John’s line; and Samuel Thornton Washington for brother Charles’s line.
- Bushrod Washington and Lawrence Lewis became the two most important executors in the inheritance story. Lewis married Nelly Parke Custis, making him both Washington’s nephew and his son-in-law through adoption. After Washington’s presidency, Lewis also served as his personal secretary, bringing the two men into close contact.
- Lawrence Lewis expected to inherit Mount Vernon but was disappointed when Bushrod received it. Lewis believed his close relationship with Washington made him the likely successor to the estate. The decision instead favored Bushrod and reportedly caused considerable resentment on Lewis’s part.
- Martha Washington’s account of two versions of George Washington’s will leaves open an alternative inheritance scenario. According to Baker, Martha said Washington had two wills and instructed her to burn one and use the other. It is therefore possible, though unproven, that the discarded version named Lewis as the Mount Vernon heir. In that hypothetical royal line, Baker identifies Charles Conrad Lewis III as the senior descendant.
- George Washington Parke Custis also acknowledged a daughter named Maria, whose mother was Ariana Carter. Carter had been born enslaved and was held in bondage by Martha Washington. Both Carter and Maria later remained enslaved by Custis, who inherited the land that is now Arlington National Cemetery and ordered the construction of Arlington House.
- Maria Carter and Charles Syphax were the first couple married at Arlington House. Both were enslaved when they married. Maria and her children were later granted freedom, and the family received 17 acres of land at Arlington.
- The second couple married at Arlington House was Mary, Maria’s half-sister, and Robert E. Lee. Mary and Lee eventually inherited the property but lost it during the Civil War when Union forces took control. Baker identifies Arlington House in the present day as the Robert E. Lee Memorial.
- The Syphax family developed into a prominent African American family with substantial public influence. Maria and Charles had ten children, including William, who became president of the board of trustees for colored schools in Washington, and John, one of the first Black members of the Virginia House of Delegates. By the twentieth century, their descendants included professors, doctors, civil rights activists, business leaders, veterans, and at least one congressman.
- Baker considers the Syphax branch unusually aristocratic in its social influence, despite never holding noble titles. Its descendants built a record of public service and professional achievement, contrasting with the conventional understanding of aristocracy as inherited titles or formal royal status.
- The descendants of Samuel Washington are often described as George Washington’s closest living relatives. Samuel was George’s eldest full brother. His branch includes George Steptoe Washington, one of the executors of George’s will, whose family became important to later efforts to identify Washington’s paternal genetic lineage.
- A scientific study published in 2024 identified George Washington’s Y-chromosomal haplogroup as R-U152. Researchers obtained DNA from the remains of two sons of George Steptoe Washington and from Samuel Walter Washington, a living male-line descendant of John’s branch. The comparison helped establish the president’s paternal genetic lineage.
- A matching R-U152 DNA result would indicate a distant shared male-line ancestor with George Washington. Baker explains that the common ancestor would have lived in Europe around 2500 BCE. The finding concerns a paternal genetic line, not proof of close genealogical relationship or descent from George Washington himself.
- George Steptoe Washington’s direct male-only line eventually died out. Baker distinguishes that extinct line from the surviving male-line descendants used to identify the broader family’s present-day senior representative.
- Richard Washington succeeded his father Paul as the person identified as the senior male-line descendant. An NBC news program in 1976 had identified Paul Washington in this role. After Paul died in 2014, Baker says the distinction passed to his son Richard.
- The Charles and Augustine branches yielded no new genealogical discoveries for Baker. He says he could not find anything particularly new or interesting about either line for this update. Brian Kelly, identified as the senior-most person in the Augustine branch, was still living at the time of the video.
- Denzel Washington’s proposed connection to the president’s family remains unverified. Amateur family trees, including one shared on the UsefulCharts subreddit, claim that Denzel Washington’s great-great-grandfather was the son of Bushrod Corbin Washington and an enslaved woman named Louisa. Baker says he found no primary records confirming the claim and invites viewers with reliable evidence to contribute.
- The Washington surname is not reliable evidence of biological descent from George Washington. After emancipation, many formerly enslaved people adopted the surname because of the president’s fame, regardless of whether they had been enslaved by the Washington family. Baker estimates that approximately 90% of people bearing the surname Washington today are Black Americans without a close biological connection to the first president.
- George Washington’s connection to the fourth U.S. president is through marriage rather than blood. The transcript identifies the fourth president as John Madison. George Steptoe Washington married Lucy Payne, who was the sister of Dolly Payne, better known as First Lady Dolly Madison.
- William Harrison is identified as the closest blood relative of George Washington to have become president. Baker explains that the two Harrison presidents descend from Ann Washington, sister of Lawrence Washington, George Washington’s great-great-grandfather. On that basis, George Washington and the ninth president were fourth cousins twice removed.
- George Washington was also related to General George Patton through his aunt Mildred Washington. Baker traces the connection seven generations down from Mildred to Patton, the prominent World War II military leader.
- Baker declines to pursue a conspiracy theory linking another president to George Patton. The theory rests on the supposed physical resemblance between the two men and claims that the unnamed president was Patton’s son. Baker dismisses the speculation as an additional and unnecessary stretch beyond the already hypothetical question of an American monarchy.