His great-greatgrandfather settled in York (disambiguation)|York county, Pennsylvania, about 1743, and from Chester (disambiguation)|Chester county, Pennsylvania, his great-grandfather, David McKinley, who served as a private during the War of Independence, moved to Ohio in 1814.
Mordecai's son John (1711-c. 1773), a weaver, settled in what is now Rockingham county, Va., and was the president's great-grandfather.
He came, on his father's side, of Thuringian stock, his great-grandfather, Hans Christian Goethe, having been a farrier at Artern-on-the-Unstrut, about the middle of the 17th century.
The name of Hashimiya, which the reigning family still retained, was henceforward derived not from Abu Hashim, but from Hashim, the grandfather of Abbas, the great-grandfather of the Prophet.
His great-grandfather the archbishop had been master of Jesus College, Cambridge, and to Jesus College he was sent.