Six degrees of everyone but Kevin Bacon
U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama
is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt and Hillary Clinton is
related to Pitt’s girlfriend Angelina Jolie,
a genealogical society informed CHINA NEWS March 25th.
.
Researchers at the New England Historic
Genealogical Society
have discovered that Jolie and Clinton
are ninth cousins,
twice removed, while Pitt and Obama are
ninth cousins,
according to a genealogical study conducted over the
last three years.
.
Hilary Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent
on her mother’s side, is also related to Madonna,
Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette, researchers found.
Other cousins include Camilla Parker Bowles
and Jack Kerouac.
.
Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas
and a black man from Kenya, on the other hand,
shares his ancestry with six U.S. presidents,
including current commander in chief, George W. Bush,
and his father, George H.W. Bush.
.
Other far-reaching Obama relations include Gerald Ford,
Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison,
as well as Vice President Dick Cheney and
Sir Winston Churchill.
.
Republican candidate John McCain’s family tree
proved tougher to trace, as records on his relatives
were not as extensive as either Obama or Clinton’s,
researchers said.
He is, however, found to be a sixth cousin
to first lady Laura Bush.
.
Genealogist Christopher Child said that while the candidates
often focus on pointing out differences between them,
their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think.
“It shows that lots of different people can be related,
people you wouldn’t necessarily expect,”
Child said.
.
Child has spent the last three years tracing the candidates’ genealogy,
along with senior research scholar Gary Boyd Roberts,
author of the 1989 book,
“Ancestors of American Presidents.”
.
The New England Historic Genealogical Society,
founded in 1845, is the oldest and largest nonprofit
genealogical organization in the United States.
.
That is all well and good,
but who famous am I related to,
and are they leaving me any money
in their will?
.
Hi!
I too have noticed the curious fact
of the relationships of president to president
and other notable people.
Indeed the guys at New England Historical
and Genalogical Society have done a great job.
Gary Boyds Roberts is personal hero of mine.
But.
They avoid the question as why they are related.
Its all a bit in the shock horror school of journalism.
I have started a blog which also logs
these connections but moves forward
to ask what the drivers of this are
and why after over 200 years the same
families deliver presidents to the USA.
Please feel free to drop by
theoligarchkings.wordpress.com
All comment would be welcome.
David Macadam - February 21, 2010 at 4:11 pm |