re – Barrack Obama and Brad Pitt are Cousins October 10, 2008

Barrack Obama and Brad Pitt are related, thats what the latest buzz is:

BOSTON — This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham 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 U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.

“You’d think with all that singing talent in the family she’d be able to carry a tune,” Clinton’s senior adviser Philippe Reines said. “But now it makes much more sense how she snagged a Grammy.”

Clinton won for best spoken word Grammy in 1997 for “It Takes a Village.” Obama also won a Grammy in that category this year for the audio version of his book, “The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream.”

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 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.

Obama often jokes about his cousin Cheney at campaign appearances.

“His kinships are across the political spectrum,” Child said.

Child has spent the last 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. Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, declined to comment on the senator’s ancestry.

Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, both related to Jean Cusson who died in St. Sulpice, Quebec, in 1718.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, is the oldest and largest nonprofit genealogical organization in the country.

source: click here

Obama is also related to a rabbi.

 

Its challenging to note that there are records for American Ancestors who died in 1662, 1718….about 300–years before Nigeria gained independence.

What crosses my mind?

1) Does Nigeria have records of what has happened in this country since independence -1960? do we have records of who has lived, who has died, where we have been to/fro since then?

2) I’m thinking about our ‘old-time-religion banks’…UBA and co: can such provide authentic information and account statements about their customer’s accounts for the past 10–years?

How about the CBN, and how about FG account statements? are they intact and preserved?

3) Can the Nigerian police provide us authentic information on all their officers for the past 10years?, the number of criminals they have successfully removed from the streets – and who are not yet back to the streets as ex-con criminals under political influence? How many cases have been successfully resolved, and how many have been forgotten and thrown under the table because the victim didn’t have enough pure-water money to pass under the table?

4) Do our airport / airline operators have records of Nigerians/non-Nigerians that have passed through  through our international airports for the past 5–years. Do they even know their own staff? Can we fish out terrorists if they choose to walk-in?

5) Why does the FG always mandate its retired civil-servants to report to the Civil Service Commission in Abuja every 6–months for VERIFICATION if things are really ‘computerized’?, and proper records are kept?

Does the Federal government have records of its civil-servants, alive or dead? do they have records of pensioneers(names, DOBs and addresses). The news is rife of ‘ghost workers, ghost pensioneers’ here and there etc., and many times, I wonder ‘how did they do that’. I think we could take some lessons from the western world as far as preservation of information is concerned.

6) I have not heard of a government/private organization like The New England Historic Genealogical Society above, local in Nigeria that keeps records of births and deaths of Nigerians and their ancestories. I typed my surnname on Facebook and discovered a lot of ‘relatives’ who even didn’t know themselves. I had to go ask big-Papa if he had some other brothers and sisters I don’t know about. What of the brothers of his own Big-Papa who might have wondered here and there. I’ve been having a good time ‘getting to know them all’ on Facebook, and ’ll blog about this later sometime later.

Like the saying goes: in Nija, you are on your own. I think we could borrow a leaf of knowledge.

Tags: Obama, Brad+Pitt