Famous cousins of candidates include Pitt-Obama, Jolie-Clinton

[sabra]

Source: AP

BOSTON (AP) - A new study finds some interesting family connections for the presidential candidates.

According to research conducted by the New England Genealogical Society, Barack Obama is a distant cousin to Brad Pitt, while his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, is related to Pitt's girlfriend.

The society traced the family trees of the three major presidential candidates, with some surprising results.

Clinton is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette, while Obama can call six U.S. presidents his cousins, including President George W. Bush and his father, as well as Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Republican John McCain is a sixth cousin of First Lady Laura Bush.

Read more: http://www.wpri.com/Global/story.asp?S=8066046

[Bicoastal]

1. Well, I'M almost definitely related to Jakob Fink.

His name may ring a bell when I tell you that he was my Ukranian Great-Grandather.

OK, maybe not.

[EOTE]

9. Not THE Jakob Fink?!?

Now I can say I participated in an internet discussion with a relative of THE Jakob Fink. My biggest claim to fame is being related to Kevin Bacon. Well, at least I saw many of his movies. But never Footloose for some reason.

[SharonRB]

2. So, if Obama is related to both Bush and Cheney, as we learned a long time ago

does this mean that Bush and Cheney are related to each other as well?

[Spike89]

11. nah, not neccessarily

I've got lots of cousins who aren't related to my other cousins (mother's family vs. father's family). Being related to two people doesn't imply those two people are related at all.

[babydollhead]

3. I have the same birthday as Stevie Wonder

[flor de jasmim]

5. I have the same as Audrey Hepburn - too bad I didn't get her looks!

[AnneD]

6. Jimmy Conners and I share the sme birthday....

and the same temper (his was tennis, mine politics).

[Taverner]

4. Six degrees of Brad Pitt?

[Harry Monroe]

7. Obama is related to GWB??

Oh shit, something else for the MSM and the Hillary campaign to run with and run into the ground!!

BTW, if I could trace my ancestry far back enough (1000 years or more) I'd bet I could prove I'm related to 99% of DU members!!

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Yeah, you're probably right

Some people make computer models:

The most recent common ancestor of all humanity lived just a few thousand years ago, according to a computer model of our family tree. Researchers have calculated that the mystery person, from whom everyone alive today is directly descended, probably lived around 1,500 BC in eastern Asia.

Douglas Rohde of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and his colleagues devised the computer program to simulate the migration and breeding of humans across the world. By estimating how different groups intermingle, the researchers built up a picture of how tightly the world's ancestral lines are linked.
...
If we discount those living in the world's remotest places, the common ancestor becomes more recent still, says Mark Humphrys, who studies human family trees at Dublin City University in Ireland. "Looking at the whole sweep of the Americas, Europe, Asia, right across to Japan, I wouldn't be surprised if we had a common ancestor in the AD years," he says.

A single prolific parent can have a vast influence once their descendants begin to multiply, Humphrys says. "The entire Western world is descended from Charlemagne, for example," he says. "There's really no doubt."

http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=1261

[KansDem]

10. I have the same birthday as FDR and Dick Cheney

January 30.

I'm also a direct descendant of Penelope Stout. Rex Stout, the author, is a distant cousin.

edited to fix link