First cousin, once removed, of Drew Gilpin Faust, who was President of Harvard University from 2007 to 2018. On her father's side, Betty is a great-granddaughter of
Billy Mitchell, a U.S. Army general, regarded as the father of the United States Air Force, a great-great-granddaughter of John L. Mitchell, a Civil War veteran and Democratic politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, from 1893 to 1899; and of Lawrence Tyson, a general, Democratic politician, and textile manufacturer who was a U.S. Senator from Tennessee, from 1925 to 1929. Her three times great-grandfather, Alexander Mitchell, born in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was a banker, railroad financier, and Democratic Wisconsin congressman.