It's all relative: President Obama, newly-elected GOP senator Scott Brown are 10th cousins

Kenneth R. Bazinet and Corky Siemaszko
Daily News Staff Writers

 

Originally Published:Friday, January 29th 2010, 1:43 PM
Updated: Friday, January 29th 2010, 3:12 PM

 

Getty/News

They may be rivals, but President Obama (l.) and newly elected Mass. Sen. Scott Brown are tenth cousins, according to a genealogical society.

President Obama's failed bid to derail the candidacy of newly elected Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown wasn't just politics - it was a family feud.

It turns out that Obama and the rising Republican star are 10th cousins, the New England Historic Genealogical Society says.

"The President's reaction is that Sen. Brown clearly comes from the better-looking branch of the family," White House spokesman Bill Burton said Friday when told of the finding.

Brown, who once posed in the pages of Cosmo, was also complimentary after learning earlier that he and Obama were kin.

"I'm glad to be in such distinguished company," Brown said.

Don't expect a family reunion anytime soon. Brown's unexpected victory - over the Democrat that Obama had been backing to win the seat that the late Sen. Ted Kennedy held for a half-century - derailed the president's plans to push through health care reform.

Obama's late mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Brown's mother, Judith Ann Rugg, both descend from Richard Singletary of Haverhill, Mass., who died in 1687 at the remarkably ripe age of 102.

"I think it's a really interesting thing, where you have the separation between a Democrat and a Republican, but you have one link," said geneologist David Allen Lambert, who helped make the connection.

But Brown is not the only Republican in Obama's ancestral closet.

Two years ago, the society discovered that Obama was also distantly related to presidents George H.W. Bush, his son, George W. Bush, and Gerald Ford - all Republicans.

He's also related to president James Madison, who was a Democrat-Republican.

Obama can also claim as kin former Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman - and actor Brad Pitt.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/01/29/2010-01-29_its_all_relative_president_obama_newlyelected_gop_senator_scott_brown_are_10th_c.html#ixzz0e6kzpaVs