Did presidential candidate Kamala Harris lie about having a Black grandmother, because the woman she identifies in her autobiography as her grandmother died four years before Harris was born? No, that's not true: Two women -- one of whom would become Harris' grandmother -- with similar first names were born in the same district of Jamaica around the same time. They had different mothers and last names. It was the woman unrelated to Harris who died in 1960, before Harris was born. The woman in a photo from Harris' autobiography is in fact her grandmother, based on records originally from Jamaica. Harris' grandmother died in 1995, when Harris was 30.
The allegation originated in a video (archived here) on the YouTube channel of conservative commentator Candace Owens. It appeared on September 24, 2024, under the title "Breaking News: Kamala Harris LIED About Her Black Grandparents."
At the 6:01 mark of the video Owens said:
It was very easy for me to determine via a light search online that Beryl, her alleged paternal grandmother that you just saw, died four years before Kamala was born.
This is how the video looked at the time of writing:
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Thu Oct 10 15:52:32 2024 UTC)
Owens said her research discovered that Harris' grandmother Beryl died in Jamaica in 1960. Harris was born in 1964.
"I'm going to need proof that she's Black," Owens said of Harris at the 15:02 mark of the video. Referring to photos in Harris' autobiography, Owens said at the 16:17 mark, "We have just significantly and without question debunked one of those photos."
In her video Owens showed and referred to a photo from Harris' autobiography, "The Truths We Hold: An American Journey," of Harris with her grandmother. A screenshot of that photo is below:
(Source: "The Truths We Hold -- An American Journey" by Kamala Harris, published by Penguin Press)
Some critics of Harris -- including her opponent Donald Trump -- have tried to cast doubt on her racial roots.
Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California, on October 20, 1964, to an Afro-Jamaican father, Donald Jasper Harris, and an Indian mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris.
In his 2018 essay "Reflections of a Jamaican Father," (archived here), Donald Harris recounted how he was strongly influenced by "my dear mother Miss Beryl." He mentions his mother's mother, "Miss Iris," also known as Iris Finegan.
Lead Stories used the genealogy site FamilySearch, with its access to 2 billion digital public records, to research this story.
Below is a screenshot of Beryl Finegan's birth certificate as recorded in FamilySearch, from the Parish of St. Ann, Jamaica, with her first name originally spelled Beril:
(Source: FamilySearch screenshot taken on Thu Oct 10 13:52:39 2024 UTC)
Beril Magdeline was born September 9, 1917, in the parish of St. Ann, Jamaica, to Iris Finegan. No father was listed. On July 26, 1944, "Beryl" Finegan married Langford Newland. Below is a screenshot of their marriage certificate showing Beryl's father listed as Patrick Finegan.
(Source: FamilySearch screenshot taken on Thu Oct 10 19:52:39 2024 UTC)
A Kingston, Jamaica, newspaper article from October 15, 1957, reported the couple divorced.
Lead Stories could find no birth certificate for Donald Harris or marriage license for his mother Beryl and his father Oscar Harris.
In his essay, Donald Harris mentioned his grandmother "Miss Iris" jointly owning a farm with her husband "Mr. Christie."
In her video, Owens cited a death certificate for Beryl Christie, age 39, who was also born in the Parish of St. Ann and died 60 miles away in Kingston, Jamaica, on July 16, 1960. A screenshot of Beryl Christie's death certificate from 1960 is below:
(Source: FamilySearch screenshot taken on Thu Oct 10 17:26:39 2024 UTC)
That would have been four years before Kamala Harris was born, which Owens insisted meant that the Black woman in the photo from Harris' autobiography could not have been her grandmother.
Lead Stories located the birth certificate for Beryl Christie. It listed her mother as Ima Sutton, not Iris Finegan. She was not a relative of Kamala Harris.
Below is a screenshot of Beryl Christie's birth certificate:
(Source: FamilySearch screenshot taken on Thu Oct 10 17:50:49 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories also found a death certificate for Beryl Finnegan that showed her birth place as Parish of St. Ann. She died on September 3, 1995, in the same community where she was born. The document listed her age as 81, about two years off from the birth year on Beril Finegan's birth certificate.
Below is a screenshot of Beryl Finnegan's death certificate:
(Source: FamilySearch screenshot taken on Thu Oct 10 17:16:40 2024 UTC)
Kamala Harris would have been 30 years old when her grandmother, Beryl Finnegan, died. The photograph of the two in her book fits the general ages of Harris and her grandmother.
As Lead Stories previously reported, under U.S. law, Harris was a citizen of the United States at birth, as she was born in the U.S., and is therefore eligible to be president.
At the time this was written, Snopes had reviewed the same claim.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning Kamala Harris can be found here and our fact checks on claims regarding the 2024 election can be found here.
