If Barrack Obama becomes the next US Prez, then actor Brad Pitt would have a distant cousin in the White House and if Hillary Clinton gets the vote, then Angelina Jolie will have a distant cousin in office, say genealogists.
According to researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Barack Obama is a distant cousin of Brad Pitt while Hillary Clinton is related to Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Alanis Morissette, and Celine Dion. The researchers found that Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769.
Clinton and Jolie, meanwhile, are ninth cousins, twice removed because they are both related to Jean Cusson who died in St. Sulpice, Quebec, in 1718.
"When you get back into your ancestry, you eventually find that you're related to lots of people," the New York Daily News quoted genealogist Christopher Child, who guided the presidential research for the New England Historic Genealogical Society, as saying. "Presidential candidates are no exception," he added.
The study was based entirely on vital records kept by cities, counties and towns. Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette, the research found. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. Presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins.
Meanwhile, Republican Presidential hopeful Senator John McCain is a sixth cousin of First Lady Laura Bush. "It shows that lots of different people can be related; people you wouldn't necessarily expect," Child said. Obama has the most prolific presidential lineage, featuring Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, as well as Gerald Ford, Harry S Truman and James Madison.
So if I understand this article correctly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are something like eighteenth cousins.
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