Who’s your daddy?

On March 25, 2008 Genealogist Christopher Child, a researcher for the New England Genealogical Society made some rather startling discoveries about our Presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton is of French-Canadian descent on her mother’s side, and is a distant cousin with singers Madonna, Celine Dion, and Alanis Morrissette. She is also related to Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Prince Charles of England. Angelina Jolie and Hillary Clinton are ninth cousins twice removed, both related to Jean Cusson whom died in 1718 in Quebec, Canada.

Barack Obama often jokes about his cousin Dick Cheney in campaign appearances, but the truth is that Dick is one of his distant cousins on his mother’s side as is both Presidents Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman, and James Madison. Other cousins include Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Civil War General Robert E. Lee. Obama and President George W Bush are 10th cousins once removed. Brad Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked to Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769.
Senator Obama’s kinships span the political spectrum, Childs remarked.

Mc Cain’s lineage was somewhat harder to trace, because records on his relatives were not as complete as the records of Obama and Clinton. Senator McCain and the First Lady, Laura Bush are sixth cousins.

Christopher Child along with senior researcher Gary Boyd Roberts have spent the last three years researching the presidential candidates, as well as authoring the 1989 book entitled “Ancestors of American Presidents”

Just goes to show you that things aren’t quite what they appear!