How many U.S. presidents' descendants are alive today? And the earliest president with living descendants?

Question

I'm looking primarily for direct descendants. I've been looking in various places for this bit of historical trivia but can't seem to find it anywhere.

Answer 1

Since 42 men have held the office (the #43 is because Cleveland --a rather big man anyway!-- occupied TWO separate spots!) the number with living descendants can be no more than 33.

That's because there are NO direct biological descendants of the following nine Presidents. (Of these, five never had children of their own, two had children who all died very young)

Washington (only stepchildren)
Madison (only stepchildren)
Jackson (had one adopted son)
Polk (had a ward, no children)
Filmore (his two children never married)
Pierce (children all died in childhood)
Buchanan (a bachelor!)
Lincoln
McKinley (his two children died very young)

check THIS page for more information on the first generation (including a lot of info about whether THEY had children)
http://www.presidentschildren.com/list.htm

I think that's the complete answer, though I'm not 100% sure none of the other lines has 'died out'. You could do a web search for names of those Presidential children listed on that page who had children themselves....

Answer 2

An interesting genealogical pursuit. I would imagine there are descendants of George Washington around. Don't know how you would count all the descendants, as that is a huge branching tree, especially when you include all the way back to Washington. Perhaps you could create a web site and try gathering them up with cooperative research.

Answer 3

The Mormons have huge geneological records. I would look into contacting the LDS geneological folks out in Salt Lake City.

Also, the earliest president you definitely could find who has direct descendents alive today would be John Adams. Washington had no children of his own, only two stepchildren, the sons of the widowed Martha Custis, whom he married but had no children with.