Genealogists call Bush and Kerry kin

[RamboLiberal]

http://starbulletin.com/2004/02/16/news/story3.html

Democratic presidential candidates are constantly being compared with the current commander in chief. Now, two Hawaii genealogy buffs say they have proof President Bush and the current Democratic front-runner share similarities thicker than water.

Bruce and Kristine Harrison, publishers of historical databases, traced back the family histories of Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

The result? They're cousins.

Well, 16th cousins, three times removed, to be exact. But cousins, nonetheless.

Truth be told, one might find such distant family ties between Bush and any of the four other major Democratic candidates.

The link between the president and the Rev. Al Sharpton might date back a bit further, Bruce Harrison said, but tracing ancestries helps illuminate a greater message on human interconnectedness, if not one on the centrification of the nation's politics.

[mobuto]

1. Well, if there is a link between the Rev. Sharpton and Bush

then the Rev. might repeat what he recently said about Justice Thomas:

"He may be kin, but he ain't my kind."

[Catshrink]

6. Sharpton does it again!

This is priceless:

"He may be kin, but he ain't my kind."

[mobuto]

12. I screwed up the quote

Apologies to the Reverend Sharpton.

Sharpton actually said "Clarence Thomas is my color, but he is not my kind."

[sybylla]

2. Not surprising

These families hung out on the east coast for a couple of hundred years. I'm surprised it took 16 generations to find a connection.

[daveskilt]

10. I used to work for a genealogy company

Apparently anyone whose family has been in the US for 5 generations or more is about 99% likely to be related to any other 5 generation inhabitant. For 2 white guys with long US family histories 16th cousins is a highly unlikely large gap, they should be a lot closer.

[AZCat]

14. Aack! I CAN'T be related to that Scumbag!

PleasePleasePlease tell me I'm in the 1% of 5+ generation inhabitants that isn't related to him- my ancestors had to have better sense than that!

[LiberalFighter]

18. Thank goodness I'm not... only 4th generation...

plus all good German stock.

[starroute]

3. Not a big deal in itself

Bush is also releated to Howard Dean. See http://members.aol.com/wreitwiesn/candidates2004/ Their common ancestors are Samuel Keeler and Sarah St John, who were born in Norwalk, CT in the middle 1600's.

Bush and Kerry are both descended from Thomas and Wealthian Richards, who were born in Weymouth and Barnstable, MA, respectively, at about the same time.

The real message is that an extraordinary number of our presidents, especially since the Civil War, have been descended from the same pool of colonial New England ancestors. In the 20th century alone, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Nixon, Ford, and both Bushes fell into that category, and many of them share common ancestors.

Northern aristocrats and Southern gentlemen take turns running our country, and most of us don't ever notice.

[daveskilt]

11. The American Hapsburgs and Sax-Coburgs

ruling the country while each successive generation gets more and more inbred and insane.... :)

[nolabels]

16. Thanks for the Update

I posed a question a few moons ago, asking another DUer about Dean (and I guess for that matter, any of them)had the correct pedigree to be president. I was kind of joke, but kind of real. Now I realize it was more real than I thought.

[NashVegas]

17. Goes Back a Little Further Than Colonials

Try Stewart. Plantagent. Capet. Beauclerc.

[LiberalFighter]

19. Need to exterminate those lines

So we get fresh blood in politics

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Cute

I must say, cute... very cute....

Now this could be fodder for some fiction, and reality is stranger than fiction all the time, huh?

[reprobate]

5. we're all related to everyone else

If you go back seven generations everyone has a common ancestor.

Or so they say.

[Hand]

7. (Icily) I see...

So you believe that I am related to Tom DeLay...

:wow:

[Retrograde]

21. I'm not

I suppose that people with English ancestry are ultimately all as closely related as they claim Kerry and Bush are, but there are a lot of people in this country whose ancenstors never set foot in Western Europe - at least in recorded history. Mine, for instance. So I don't have to be related to Bush.

Can't most people of English ancestry trace their families back to one of the Plantagenets? Small island and a couple of prolific guys are all it takes. Luckily, most records of my ancestors were apparantly destroyed in WWII, so I get to make up my own. If I care.

linda

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Most English people may be Plantagenet descendants

but are unlikely to be able to prove it. Parishes only had to start keeping birth, marriage and death records at the start of the 19th century - before that it was up to the local vicar if he recorded them permanently or not (in general, the richer your ancestors, the more likely someone made a written record). In Scotland the records are fairly comprehensive for 100 years or so more. My great grandfather traced our family tree, and it does seem to include a link to the Plantagenets etc. - via Scotland. Once you find one landowner, or well known person, you stand a lot better chance of taking it back a lot further.

If there were random mixing, anyone in Britain probably ought to be related by some common ancestor about 300 years ago (12 generations). Consider: 12 generations is 2 to the power of 12 ancestors (assuming no-one turns up twice - in practice they will, a bit). That's about 4000 ancestors. If those are picked at random from a population of 16 million (4000 squared), you'd expect another random pick, for someone else, to have 1 ancestor in common. 16 million is more than the population of the British Isles 300 years ago. In reality, richer families would be more likely to be related to each other, and poorer ones to families who live in the same area.

I'd be very surprised if you have to go back 16 generations to link up 2 wealthy New England families. It may just be that they can't prove closer relations - if you get common names in a tree, you can't assume that a year of birth is enough to identify someone - which might be the only other information in a simple marriage record, say. You end up needing things like family memoirs, or legal documents giving addresses and relations, to give corroborative evidence.

[Norquist Nemesis]

8. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon n/t

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. Well, we know where all the 'stupid' genes went

and it weren't Kerry.

[twilight]

13. we are all related!

Geez, well I found out that I am related to Pope John Paul II! What does that make me? :D

If you study the field of geneology long enough, you'll find out you are related to all sorts of people you never imagined.

However, being related to the pope is a biggie for me!! :evilgrin:

:dem: :kick:

[JohnOneillsMemory]

15. We are all African women, according to biologists. Dig that!

Humans evolved on the plains of Africa seven million years ago.
Every human embryo begins female until it changes to male.

Yes, even Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and Orrin Hatch have deep roots as an African woman.

OK, graphic artists, let's see them...

[indepat]

20. That's a bit distant considering we are probably related to most

people if you go back far enough. My wife has documentation indicating descendency from William the C (some 29 generations), but countless millions of others could probably rightfully make that claim if they had the documentation.

[MacCovern]

22. John Kerry is part of BFEE?

I don't know how to take this. For a long time now I've been
reading about the "Bush Family Evil Empire" (BFEE), and now
we find out that Kerry is a part of that family.

B*sh and Kerry are cousins and both are Skull & Bones guys.

The more things might change, the more they might just stay
the same.

[sangha]

24. I'd like to what how other people's family tree look like

I suspect people who don't read and comprehend well might be even more closely related.

[leesa]

23. Well, if that ain't dirty politicking....being connected genetically

to the Chief Chimp!

[GreyV]

25. Hehe....

They are even related. Like it's not noticeable.