This isn't really interesting data; After 150 years, the family tree becomes pretty wide and interconnected. The fact that Barrack Obama has ancestors who owned slaves is about as interesting as someone saying they're related to Genghis Khan or Charlemagne

> every living former U.S. president – except Donald Trump – are direct descendants of slaveholders

True, and I bet in the Trump family there were Slave traders. If you look back further enough I believe everyone is a descendant of both a slave and slave owner.

There is a lot more history about Slavery than in just in the US. Only the US has detail records about it, thus easier to research.

What matters is how people view this practice now and understand the full history of it.

> There is a lot more history about Slavery than in just in the US.

This article notes up front that it's specifically about slavery in America.

> What matters is how people view this practice now and understand the full history of it.

As an American, my take is that many Americans aren't bothered by it, in part because they don't know much about it. Many of those same people are laying a foundation that prevents current and future generations from learning about it, much less understanding it.

I don't think you should shame or discredit people for the sins of their ancestors, which appears to be the point of the article. Are current German leaders tied to the Holocaust because of what their grandparents did?

"The Reuters examination reveals how intimately tied America remains to the institution of slavery, including through the “people who make the laws that govern our country,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr, a professor at Harvard University who focuses on African and African American research and hosts the popular television genealogy show Finding Your Roots on PBS."

It's worth a thought whether you can trace generational wealth back to a time when people were enslaving people. I, for example, did some research a while back, since my family has been in America since the 1600's, and I found one instance of an ancestor who "owned" a slave. (In quotes because I accept this is not a legitimate use of the word.) No benefit of that has been passed down to me, and no information about it except my own digging, so I don't feel I'm responsible for that. Errata that I found during that search was she was set free when she married, and I had two (English) ancestors deeper in time who were themselves enslaved by Barbary pirates.