Thanks! Did you see post #45?
Yes, that was interesting!
With his widespread ancestry in Colonial America, Obama "is certainly related to millions of contemporary Americans -- perhaps even a significant percentage of the population," Roberts wrote.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Can Virginia add Obama to its leadership legacy?
A genealogical scholar says presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is a distant relative of both Robert E. Lee and President James Madison.
BY FRANK DELANO
....According to a venerable genealogical society, the Illinois senator and presumptive Democratic nominee for president is a distant cousin of both President James Madison, who was born in King George County in 1751, and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who was born in 1807 at Stratford in Westmoreland County.
....A scholar of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston traced lots of Obama's maternal ancestors. The society announced earlier this year that Gary Boyd Roberts found that Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham of Kansas, had many ties to old families in Virginia and other Colonies.
One of those lines goes back to a 17th-century Englishman named Richard Eltonhead, the ancestor shared by Obama, Madison and Lee.....Consequently, Obama and James Madison are third cousins nine times removed, Roberts wrote.
The Corbin connection makes Obama and Lee fifth cousins eight times removed, Roberts discovered. It also ties him to Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee, two Stratford brothers who signed the Declaration of Independence.
....Tallent said some patrons of the Westmoreland County Museum have been surprised when told of Obama's possible local connection.
"People either don't believe it or they think it's wrong," she said. "But one visitor said, 'So Obama's just an old Westmoreland County boy after all.'"
....Obama has more famous kin than John McCain, the Boston genealogist found. McCain, the likely GOP nominee for president, is sixth cousin to first lady Laura Bush.
But Obama is also related to both her husband and her father-in-law, as well as to Presidents Truman, Johnson and Ford, according to Roberts.
With his widespread ancestry in Colonial America, Obama "is certainly related to millions of contemporary Americans--perhaps even a significant percentage of the population," Roberts wrote.
Roberts said Obama's African ancestry can be traced for several generations. The village where Barack Obama Sr. was born is about 200 miles from Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge, where anthropologists have discovered fossil remains of human ancestors dating back 2.5 million years. Therefore, on his father's side, Obama might be a cousin to everybody on Earth.
FULL ARTICLE AT: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/062008/06212008/388337/printer_friendly