Tom Brady: two-time NFL MVP, five-time Super Bowl champion, hometown hero.
So, about that last part.
The New England Patriots quarterback, of course, does not hail from New England. He was born and raised in San Mateo, Calif., and went to college at Michigan. But it turns out Brady has a biological connection to Boston, the city that witnessed his transformation into the greatest NFL quarterback ever.
In an in-depth feature on Brady’s family tree, The Boston Globe’s Bob Hohler revealed Sunday that the QB’s great-great-grandparents are John and Bridget Brady, who established roots in Boston in the mid-19th century.
Per Hohler, who cited the research of amateur genealogist Jim McNiff, John Brady fled his native Ireland and found work as a laborer in Boston, where he married Bridget Bailey. John and Bridget had two children in Boston, according to census records, one of which was Tom Brady’s great-grandfather, Philip F. Brady.
The Brady clan moved west to California before the Civil War, which explains Tom’s San Francisco roots. In California, Philip had a son, Philip J. Brady, whose younger brother, Harry, later married and had his own son: Tom Brady Sr., the Patriots QB’s father.
So, does that make TB12 a die-hard Bostonian? Of course not. But it’s still fitting that Brady, who was passed up 198 times in the 2000 NFL Draft before New England finally selected him, has blood ties to the city on which he’ll leave an enduring legacy.
Hohler’s story on Brady’s lineage is worth a full read, as it reveals the 39-year-old’s family tree also includes a firefighter, a World War II veteran and a professional baseball player.
Thumbnail photo via Bob Donnan/USA TODAY Sports Images
