James Albert King was born in 1864 to an
Irish American father Nathan King, and Malinde, a freed
African American slave. Nathan King has been variously recorded to have been born in
Ohio,
Pennsylvania, or
Ireland. In 2010, DNA testing on James's great-grandson,
Martin III by
23andMe confirmed that the King's family
Y-chromosome lineage originated from Ireland. King married Delia Linsey (1875–1924) in 1895, and they both worked as
sharecroppers, in
Henry County and
Clayton County in
Georgia, and then
Stockbridge, Georgia where they settled and where their son, Michael (later
Martin Sr.) was born in 1899. ==Later life==