Technology-assisted genealogy research may have an impact on US Presidential politics
David March 27th, 2008
Despite their ideological differences, genealogists have found that the leading US presidential candidates are tied more closely than previously thought. Barack Obama is a distant to cousin to the current President George W. Bush and the former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchhill. Senator John McCain is related to the current first lady, Laura Bush. Senator Hillary Clinton has ties to entertainers Celine Dion and Madonna. (See CNN, Family ties: Candidates’ ancestry makes for strange bedfellows)
The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, says it is the oldest such organization in the country. Members spent three years tracing the lineage of the candidates. … Most surprisingly, Obama — the man who could become America’s first African-American president — is linked by ancestry to Robert E. Lee, who commanded the armies of the Southern slave-holding states during the American civil war.
You don’t have to be a presidential candidate to be able to look up your ancestry easily. Digital Roots, a BYU Computer Science research foundation, has created Relationship Finder. This tool duplicates the years of research that the NEHGS did for the presidential candidates in only a matter of seconds. For its data it uses the Ancestral File, so if you don’t have family members who have contributed data to this previously, you won’t get many results. [Note: You’ll need the Ancestral File Number (AFN) from as many of your last three or four generations of ancestors as you have available as input for this search. You can look this up at FamilySearch.org.] Give it a try, you’ll be surprised at how many people you are related to!