US political enemies share family bonds
Source: Agencies |
October 14, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
UNITED States President Barack Obama has family ties to none other than fierce rival, and former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, according to genealogists at Ancestry.com, a discovery the family history site made when looking for connections between political foes.
Obama is also apparently related to conservative radio host and relentless critic Rush?Limbaugh.
A genealogist at Ancestry.com, Anastasia Tyler, said Obama and Palin are 10th cousins through a common ancestor named John Smith, a pastor and early settler in 17th-century Massachusetts. Obama is related to Smith through his mother, as is Palin, Tyler said.
Limbaugh is also a 10th cousin of the president - once removed - through a common ancestor named Richmond Terrell, a 17th-century landowner in Virginia.
Tyler said that they discover such connections by picking the people they're interested in, they then examine their family trees, going back further and further into history, looking for common surnames and locations.
Ancestry.com has revealed in the past that Obama is related to investor Warren Buffett and actor Brad Pitt. It has also found that Palin, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate, is a distant cousin of Princess Diana.
The site isn't the only source of this sort of celebrity genealogy information - in 2007, former Vice President Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne, discovered ancestral ties between Cheney and Obama while researching her book. She said the relationship was eighth cousin.
Ancestry.com also found that Palin is distant cousins with US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and conservative author and pundit Ann Coulter, through John Lathrop, who was exiled to the United States from England for being a pastor of an illegal independent church.
Obama is also apparently related to conservative radio host and relentless critic Rush?Limbaugh.
A genealogist at Ancestry.com, Anastasia Tyler, said Obama and Palin are 10th cousins through a common ancestor named John Smith, a pastor and early settler in 17th-century Massachusetts. Obama is related to Smith through his mother, as is Palin, Tyler said.
Limbaugh is also a 10th cousin of the president - once removed - through a common ancestor named Richmond Terrell, a 17th-century landowner in Virginia.
Tyler said that they discover such connections by picking the people they're interested in, they then examine their family trees, going back further and further into history, looking for common surnames and locations.
Ancestry.com has revealed in the past that Obama is related to investor Warren Buffett and actor Brad Pitt. It has also found that Palin, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate, is a distant cousin of Princess Diana.
The site isn't the only source of this sort of celebrity genealogy information - in 2007, former Vice President Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne, discovered ancestral ties between Cheney and Obama while researching her book. She said the relationship was eighth cousin.
Ancestry.com also found that Palin is distant cousins with US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and conservative author and pundit Ann Coulter, through John Lathrop, who was exiled to the United States from England for being a pastor of an illegal independent church.
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