Posted on 10/14/2010 5:03:51 AM PDT by Bad~Rodeo
NEW YORK – And you thought it was strange to hear that Barack Obama was related to Dick Cheney. Well, betcha can't guess who he's related to now!
Yup — the president has family ties to none other than Sarah Palin, according to the genealogists at Ancestry.com, a discovery the family history site made when looking for connections between political foes.
And that's not all — Obama also is apparently related to radio host and relentless critic Rush Limbaugh. Might you want to reconsider some of your recent comments, Mr. Limbaugh, now that you're apparently family?
A genealogist at the Utah-based Ancestry.com, Anastasia Tyler, said Obama and Palin are 10th cousins through a common ancestor named John Smith, a pastor and early settler in 17th-century Massachusetts. Obama is related to Smith through his mother, as is Palin, Tyler said.
"Smith was against the persecution of the Quakers," Tyler said in an interview. "He was a very socially conscious man."
As for Limbaugh, he's also a 10th cousin of the president — one time removed — through a common ancestor named Richmond Terrell, who Tyler said was a large landowner in Virginia, also in the 17th century. "His history is a little more nebulous," Tyler said.
How do the genealogists come up with this stuff? Tyler said they start by picking the people they're interested in, then examine their family trees, going back further and further into history, looking for common surnames and locations.
In the recent project, genealogists looked at the trees of Obama, Palin, and Limbaugh but also a few others, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Fox pundits Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. They didn't find anything much with the latter three.
But former President George W. Bush? He's related to BOTH Obama and Palin, the site
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
All this really does is tie Stanley Ann Dunham to Palin and Rush. 0bama hasn’t proven he’s Stanley’s son, yet.
“Might you want to reconsider some of your recent comments, Mr. Limbaugh, now that you’re apparently family?”
Interesting that the author chose this phraseology, rather than the other way around.
LOL! Well said.
Genealogists must rely on documents, and no matter how well documented an ancestral line is, documentation cannot take into account such possibilities as babies switched at birth (remember Puddinhead Wilson?), maternal infidelity (anybody see the HBO series Rome?), clerical errors, etc.
Nucleic acid has changed all this to some extent, and will probably change it even more.
Years ago, when I was a resident (physician) I was called upon to help resolve a paternity suit.
We explained the ABO system and how the man could not be the father of the child because his blood type was AB, his wife's was A, and the child's was O.
The man registered doubt and then said: "If that's true, how come my mother's blood type is A, my father's O, and mine is AB?
She messed up our taxes, too.
"Perhaps I am unlucky"
Perhaps you are lucky.
everyone is related to everyone else if you go back far enough
and this has nothing to do with eveolution - it can be scientifically proven by DNA
We all are if we go back far enough. For most of us, the documents don't exist. For some, e.g. Queen Elizabeth, they do. But, of course, as we have already established, documents don't necessarily reflect the truth.
Uhhmmm, no
I’m related to Obama too, I hope (not).
Limbaugh is distraught to find that one of his relatives is living in a hut in Kenya.
This means under Hawaii law that Sarah Palin can get Obama’s Long Form Birth Certificate since they now share a common ancestor.
Proof his white half is “evil”. < /sarc >
He’s also directly descended from Mohammed. < /s >
I know this girl who is SOOO proud to be related to Elvis. She looks like him, too. (Not a good thing.... big ol’ Elvis head on a petite body...)
We explained the ABO system and how the man could not be the father of the child because his blood type was AB, his wife's was A, and the child's was O.
The man registered doubt and then said: "If that's true, how come my mother's blood type is A, my father's O, and mine is AB?
Ouch.
I do recall learning in genetics class about the Bombay blood type, which can cause anomolous blood typing results. However, I'd have to find a better explanation than that in Wikipedia of the genetics involved before saying that there is a remote possibility that the man you mentioned actually is related to the people he thinks are his child and his father.
But in my defense, I was quite young and had never been to Bombay. Also I think I slept through that part of the genetics lecture. I'm glad you didn't. Thanks! ~S
I think that's why you didn't snooze through genetics class.
~S
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