From a BBC online News report which, given my interest in genealogy, is totally fascinating;
Mr Obama and Mr Cheney share a French ancestor |
They may be polar opposites politically but US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Democratic candidate Barack Obama are related, Mr Cheney’s wife says. Lynne Cheney said she had discovered while doing family research for a new book that her husband and the Illinois senator were eighth cousins.
She said she traced a common ancestor of the two men to be a 17th century immigrant from France.
She described the connection as “amazing”.
“This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor… could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths.”
According to Mrs Cheney’s spokeswoman, Mr Obama is distantly related to Mareen Duvall, whose son Samuel married the granddaughter of Mr Cheney’s ancestor, also called Richard Cheney.
Mr Obama’s spokesman, Bill Burton, responded to the news by saying: “Every family has a black sheep.”
Mr Cheney, the brooding neo-conservative closely associated with the decision to invade Iraq, has little else in common with Mr Obama.
Mr Obama, the son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas, has earned epithets like “rock star” because of his popularity among young Democrats, and a reputation as a liberal because of his voting record in the Senate.
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Filed under: History, Political, Strange World | Tagged: , Cheney, genealogy, History, Obama, politics
Why is anyone surprised? There have to be millions of people in the US who are eighth cousin or closer. This is such a non-story even though it is amusing. I guess the real story here is that Lynne Cheney would announce it.
The say politics makes strange bedfellows. I guess the same can be said about genealogy as well?
Paul, it is one thing to know these things theoretically but it is quite different to see it proven in black and white (Or, in this case, red and blue).
gen6tex, genealogy doesn’t only make strange bedfellows, it also makes for unexpected bedfellows
Does this make Dick Cheney an octoroon? I want to be watching CNN at the moment somebody asks him that.
Rain, welcome back from your bacchanalia, I don’t think any reporter would ask that – he may be invited on a hunting trip – - -
obama (((((((((