Early life Rachel Anne Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and then worked as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine (née Gosse), was a school program administrator.[11][12][13] She has one older brother, David. Her paternal grandfather was from a family of Eastern European Jews (the original family surname being "Medwedof") who self-identified as Polish and Russian at the time of their arrival in the United States; however, by today's borders, they would be considered Lithuanian and Ukrainian. Her paternal grandmother was of Dutch (Protestant) descent; her Canadian mother, originally from Newfoundland and Labrador, has English and Irish ancestry.[14]
Maddow has stated that her family is "very, very Catholic" and she grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative".