Distant Relations
According to genealogists, Barack Obama's distant cousins include the multitude of descendants of his maternal ancestors from all along the early-American Atlantic seaboard as well as paternal, Kenyan relations belonging to the Luo tribe, many descending from a 17th century ancestor named Owiny. For example, George W. Bush, the 43rd U.S. president, is the eleventh cousin of Barack Obama. The New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade has stated that with eleven generations leading back to their common progenitor, Samuel Hinckley, the relationship between the 43rd President and the 44th President is "genetically meaningless".
Selected genealogical relationships
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According to William Reitwiesner, he is Obama's 22nd cousin two times removed. |
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According to Barack Obama's family lore (and confirmed by the New England Historic Genealogical Society), the President and Hickok are sixth cousins, six-times removed. |
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Goodnight helped inspire Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry to create a protagonist for his novel series Lonesome Dove: Woodrow Call. In Dove's television novela, Woodrow Call's partner is Gus McCrae, portrayed by Obama's eighth cousin, twice removed, actor Robert Duvall. |
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It is claimed that Obama may also be distantly related to U.S. Presidents James Madison, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, U.S. Civil War General Robert E. Lee, and actor Brad Pitt. |
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According to Chicago Sun-Times reporter Scott Fornek, another Obama progenitor, Catherine Goodnight, was the grandniece of George Goodnight, who was in turn great-grandfather of famed cattleman Charles Goodnight. |
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Actor Duvall is distant cousins with United States President Harry Truman, who is likewise a fourth cousin, four times removed, of Obama's. |
Five volumes of family genealogy (as compiled at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah), were presented by Mormon leaders to Obama in July 2009. In a statement, Obama said he was "looking forward to reading through the materials with my daughters. It's something our family will treasure for years to come."
Moneygall, Ireland, resident Henry Healy, Barack Obama's eighth cousin, became known for having initiated a visit by the U.S. president in May 2011 to Healy's hometown.
Read more about this topic: Family Of Barack Obama
Famous quotes containing the words distant relations, distant and/or relations:
“Our actual Friends are but distant relations of those to whom we are pledged.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)