I’ve always had an interest in genealogy. Well, not always - but since I’ve been old enough to care. In fact, I keep up several genealogical websites. By doing genealogical research over the years I have learned that we are all kin if you go back far enough and our families cross paths multiple times in our family trees - we are kin AND inbred!!! So it was interesting to me, and not a surprise to me, when Lynne Cheney explained the kinship connection her husband and Barack Obama have.

Lynne Cheney was being interviewed by Norah O’Donnell on MSNBC the other day when she admitted to a bias about who she hoped would be the democratic nominee for President.

One of the things I discovered was that Dick and Barack Obama are eighth cousins. Is that an amazing thing? If you go back eight generations, we have a common ancestor.

Of course she was then asked if that meant she is ‘for Barack Obama’. Cheney replied, ‘No.’

The common ancestor is 8 generations back. A spokeswoman for Lynne Cheney explains that Obama is descended from a woman named Mareen Duvall. She was a French Huguenot whose son married the granddaughter of a man named Richard Cheney. This 17th century Richard Cheney arrived in Maryland in the late 1650s from England.

Obama’s campaign responded to this revelation by saying … ‘Every family has a black sheep.’

I don’t know though - there’s a definite family resemblance!
Dick Cheney and Barack Obama

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