Albert Gore, Jr. was born at Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C. He is the second of two chidren. His father, Albert A. Gore Sr. was a Senator for Tennessee and congressman. His mother, Pauline LaFon Gore was one of the first women to have graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School. Gore is descended from Scots-Irish immigrants who first settled in Virginia in the mid-17th-century, and moved to Tennessee after the Revolutionary War. At least two of these ancestors, Jacob Waggoner and Lewis Stunston, owned slaves. Gore was brought up in both Washington and Tennessee. His older sister was Nancy LaFon Gore, who was born in 1938, died of lung cancer in 1984.