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Strange relations ... Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (top)
with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (bottom).
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This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a
distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Clinton is related
to Pitt's girlfriend Angelina Jolie.
Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society
found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential
candidates - Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican
John McCain.
Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side,
is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis
Morissette.
Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from
Kenya, can call six US presidents, including George W Bush, his
cousins.
McCain is a sixth cousin of 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.
Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features
Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President
George W Bush and his father, George Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon
Johnson, Harry Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins
include Vice-President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir
Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E Lee.
"His kinships are across the political spectrum," Child
said.
Child has spent the past three years tracing the candidates'
genealogy, along with senior research scholar Gary Boyd Roberts,
author of the 1989 book, Ancestors of American Presidents.
Clinton's distant cousins include beatnik author Jack Kerouac
and Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Prince Charles of England.
McCain's ancestry was more difficult to trace because records on
his relatives were not as complete as records for the families of
Obama and Clinton, Child said.
Obama and President Bush are 10th cousins, once removed, linked
by Samuel Hinkley of Cape Cod, who died in 1662.
Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who
died in Virginia in 1769.
Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, both related
to Jean Cusson who died in St Sulpice, Quebec in 1718.
AP
And somewhere up
the line, someone's great great great great grandpa must have been
quite promiscuous! 
