two of my favorite things are politics/public policy and genealogy. it’s rare that the two cross paths for me – at least in the modern day. so, when stories come up that link both, i love it, in spite of them boring many other genealogists.

in case you haven’t heard, barack obama and dick cheney are eighth cousins. for those of you not obsessed with this stuff, that means that they share an ancestor eight generations back. to put that into context, i’m in fairly regular contact with a 5th cousin and our shared ancestor died in the early 1800s. Almost 200 years ago. Add at least another 50-60 years to that, and you’ve reached the 8th ancestor – long before democrats and republicans even existed, before the american or french revolutions. who knew?

here’s the full story

(from a UK paper – i love the way the brits describe american politicians!)

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