American Royalty: Palin related to Princess Diana and Roosevelt
Source: reuters.com
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is distantly related to the late Princess Diana and late U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, genealogy experts said on Wednesday.
The governor of Alaska and the princess are tenth cousins, while Palin and Roosevelt are ninth cousins once removed, said Ancestry.com, online genealogists based in Provo, Utah.
The genealogical connections are not the first to gain attention in the U.S. presidential campaign. Last year, Lynne Cheney said she found while tracing her family roots that her husband Vice President Dick Cheney was a distant cousin of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
Other researchers discovered Obama is distant cousins with actor Brad Pitt.
"When you've got candidates who have deep roots in America, there's a good chance that they're going to have some famous cousins," said Ancestry.com's chief family historian Megan Smolenyak.
"We've all got literally millions of cousins. The trick is finding that one little connection that results in something like Sarah Palin being related to FDR or Diana," she said.
Palin and the late princess descended from John Strong and his wife Abigail Ford, Ancestry.com said.
Strong was born around 1605 in England and emigrated to the United States, where he died in Massachusetts in 1699, Ancestry.com said.
alin and Roosevelt share ancestor John Lothrop, who was born in England in 1584 and also emigrated to America, where he died in Massachusetts in 1653, Ancestry.com said.
Article from: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE4971HJ20081008
Obama's Elite Lineage
From: msnbc.msn.com
Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins.
Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. 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,"
Article from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23797072/
