Elizabeth Ann Blaesing

Elizabeth Ann Blaesing (née Britton) was born on October 22, 1919, in Asbury Park, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Nan Britton and Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States. Her parents' romantic relationship began when Harding was a U.S. senator and continued until his death in 1923. Following her birth, Blaesing was taken in by her maternal aunt and uncle, Elizabeth and Scott Willits, residents of Athens, Ohio. Both Willits were music professors at Ohio University, and she lived with them for several years.

Her birth certificate listed her name as Emma Eloise Britton due to a doctor's error, although she used the Harding surname during her youth and early adulthood. Her mother, Nan Britton, authored a book titled *The President's Daughter*, in which she claimed Harding as her child's father. In 1938, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing married Henry Edward Blaesing in Chicago, Illinois.

She graduated from Sullivan High School, located in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, she and her family lived on Alderdale Street in Downey, California, before moving to Glendale, California, in the mid-1960s.

In 1964, issues surrounding Harding's paternity of Blaesing gained public attention amid lawsuits related to the ownership of Harding's love letters to Carrie Phillips. An Associated Press article in July of that year quoted Blaesing confirming that her mother told her in 1934 that Harding was her biological father. Despite this, Blaesing declined multiple requests for interviews from Harding scholars and authors, including Robert H. Ferrell and John Dean.

Elizabeth Ann Blaesing passed away in Oregon on November 17, 2005. Her death was not publicly announced, but her son, Thomas Blaesing, confirmed her passing in an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer in May 2006. According to her son, she was not interested in pursuing DNA testing to confirm her paternity.

In 2015, decades after her death and nearly a century after her birth, genetic testing conducted by AncestryDNA confirmed that Warren G. Harding was her biological father. The results were based on DNA comparisons that established second cousin relationships between Dr. Peter Harding, Harding’s grandnephew, and James Blaesing, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing’s son, thereby conclusively establishing Harding’s paternity.

Throughout her life, Blaesing was known to have used different surnames, including Britton, her birth surname, and at one point, Christian, her mother’s chosen surname. Despite her claims and the subsequent genetic confirmation, she did not actively seek additional proof of paternity during her lifetime.