POLITICAL GENEALOGY
The Revolving Door Citizenship of Tomi Lahren’s Great-Great-Grandfather
How does this keep happening? I’ve researched thousands of family trees, and ones involving documented immigration irregularities are relatively rare. And yet, when digging into the past of anti-immigration politicians and activists, it’s a recurring theme.
Among these is Tomi Lahren, a vocal immigration critic, whose great-great-grandfather, Constantin Dietrich, was indicted for forging his naturalization papers. And now her family is back for a second helping — this time with a different great-great-grandfather, Gilbert Halvor Lahren. I’ll ask you to bear with me as there’s an extensive paper trail to follow.
Gudbrand Halvorson was born in Norway in 1857 and came to America in 1873 with his mother and siblings. They joined his father, Halvor Larsen, in Minnesota and later moved to North Dakota.
Norwegian → American
Scandinavians often appear in records under two surnames — a patronymic derived from the father’s first name and a locality-based farm name. By the time of the 1880 census, the family had shifted from Halvorson to Lahren — possibly to distinguish themselves from the many other Halvorsons. Gudbrand would later Americanize his first name to Gilbert, and this is the name that…
