Press reports this morning (October 17) indicate the Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are related - 8th cousins. Lynne Cheney, wife of the US VP, revealed that while researching the Cheney family tree for her new book Blue Skies, No Fences, she discovered that the Vice President and Obama are related -- albeit distantly.
Mrs. Cheney said that it was "an amazing American story that one ancestor . . . could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths."
Mrs. Cheney said she traced a common ancestor of the two men to a 17th century immigrant from France - Mareen and Susannah Duvall.
According to Mrs Cheney's spokeswoman, Mr Obama, the son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas, is distantly related to Mareen Duvall, whose son Samuel married the granddaughter of Mr Cheney's ancestor, also called Richard Cheney
In fact, according to the Chicago Sun-Times Obama and President George W. Bush are 11th cousins.
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton offered a tongue-in-cheek response to the revelation, saying, "Every family has a black sheep."
