When I read this I got real excited. I was just beginning to count the number of ancestors I could piece together when I realized the date. April 1st. It just crushed my little heart when I realized it was just a joke but I commend the Ancestry Insider for putting together such a great piece.

What makes this so believable is that I can see this actually happening. An MAYBE the 1890 census is just sitting in some mislabeled area of the archives or government building somewhere. Things that make you go “hmmmm”. Anyways, I know you got me good Insider and I bet you got everyone else as well. Great Job!

BOSTON – This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt’s girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother’s side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.

Genealogist Christopher Child said that while the candidates often focus on pointing out differences between them, their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think.

“It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn’t necessarily expect,” Child said.

Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.

“His kinships are across the political spectrum,” Child said.

Child has spent the last three years tracing the candidates’ genealogy, along with senior research scholar Gary Boyd Roberts, author of the 1989 book, “Ancestors of American Presidents.”

Clinton’s distant cousins include beatnik author Jack Kerouac and Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Prince Charles of England.

McCain’s ancestry was more difficult to trace because records on his relatives were not as complete as records for the families of Obama and Clinton, Child said.

Obama and President Bush are 10th cousins, once removed, linked by Samuel Hinkley of Cape Cod, who died in 1662.

Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769.

Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, both related to Jean Cusson who died in St. Sulpice, Quebec, in 1718.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, is the oldest and largest nonprofit genealogical organization in the country.

• ***QUARANTINED***GENEALOGY FEVER***INCURABLE***
• A family reunion is an effective form of birth control.
• A great many family trees were started by grafting.
• A miser is hard to live with, but makes a great ancestor.
• A new cousin a day keeps the boredom away.
• Add to your Genealogy the fun, easy way, Have Grand Children!
• After 30 days any unclaimed ancestors will be adopted.
• Alright! Everybody out of the genetic pool!
• Always willing to share my ignorance…
• Am I the only person up my tree? Seems like it.
• Ancestors were just people…
• Any family tree produces some lemons, nuts and bad apples.
• At last a chance to make my skeletons dance!
• Baby = A new acorn on the family tree.
• Beware of the Genealogy Bug; It’s bite can be addictive!
• Biochemists wear designer genes.
• C A U T I O N ! … You have now entered the Genealogy Zone.
• Can a first cousin, once removed, return?
• Cemetery: (n) A marble orchard not to be taken for granite.
• Cousins marrying cousins: A non-branching family tree.
• Cousins marrying cousins: VERY tangled roots!
• Crazy…. is a relative term in MY family.
• Cussin: what genealogists do when they can’t find one.
• Damn! My family tree was just wood-chipped.
• Death is just nature’s way of dropping carrier.
• Do I even WANT ancestors? Some I found I wish I could lose.
• Do I hear the rattle of chains?
• Do I need a Genealogical Search Warrant to see the records?
• Documentation….The is the hardest part of genealogy.
• Don’t judge me by my relatives, I didn’t choose them!
• Don’t sit under the family tree with anyone else but me!
• Ever find an ancestor HANGING from the family tree?
• Ever stop to think… and forget to start again?
• Every family tree has some sap in it.
• Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don’t have film.
• Evolution is God’s way of issuing updates.
• Family history: a quilt work of lives.
• FLOOR: (n) The place for storing your priceless genealogy records.
• Friends come and go, but relatives tend to accumulate.
• Gene Police! You! **Out of the pool!**
• Gene-Allergy – It’s a contagious disease, but I love it!
• Genealogist caught trying to chop down family tree! — Film at 11!
• Genealogists are like monkeys, always in the trees.
• Genealogists are time unravelers.
• Genealogists diet: “Fiche and Ships topped with tantalizing Sources”!
• Genealogists do it for the memories!
• Genealogists do it generation after generation.
• Genealogists do it in the library.
• Genealogists do it off the record.
• Genealogists do it with a computer.
• Genealogist’s Hunting Season never ends!
• Genealogists live in the past lane.
• Genealogists never die, they just get filed away.
• Genealogists never die, they just haunt archives.
• Genealogists never die, they just loose their roots.
• Genealogists never lose their jobs, they just go to another branch!
• Genealogists should also consider the handsome neighbor…
• Genealogists: People helping people…..that’s what it’s all about!
• Genealogists: Time unravelers.
• Genealogy – a search for the greatest treasures – our ancestors.
• Genealogy – it’s only an obsession after all!
• Genealogy goes on… and on… and on…
• Genealogy in the buff, no…. I mean I’m a genealogy Buff!
• Genealogy is contagious – seldom fatal!
• Genealogy is great when you score!
• Genealogy is in my genes!
• Genealogy is like Hide & Seek: They Hide &…. I Seek!
• Genealogy is my hobby. I collect ancestors & descendants.
• Genealogy is not a hobby, it’s a disease!
• Genealogy is the only hobby where dead people can really excite you.
• Genealogy is T-R-E-E-rific!
• Genealogy…it’s not a hobby, it’s an obsession.
• Genealogy: A hay stack full of needles. It’s the threads I need.
• Genealogy: A search for the greatest treasures, our ancestore.
• Genealogy: Better than the best adventure game and as frustrating.
• Genealogy: Chasing your own tale!
• Genealogy: Collecting dead relatives and sometimes a live cousin!
• Genealogy: It’s all relative in the end anyway.
• Genealogy: It’s only an obsession after all!
• Genealogy: Looking for needles in haystacks.
• Genealogy: People collecting people!
• Genealogy: Search long enough and EVERYONE connects somehow.
• Genealogy: The marriage of a jigsaw puzzle to a dungeon & dragons game.
• Genealogy: Tracing descent from someone who didn’t.
• Genealogy: Tracing yourself back to better people.
• Genealogy: Where you confuse the dead and irritate the living.
• Ghosts are merely unsubstantiated roomers.
• Give me your tired, your poor … they’re genealogists!
• God gave us relatives, luckily we can choose our friends!
• God! What a mess this family’s in.
• Having children is hereditary. If your parents didn’t have you you probably won’t either!
• He ain’t heavy–He’s my brother’s aunt’s sister’s husband.
• He who dies with the most ancestors wins!
• Heredity: Everyone believes in it until their children act like fools!
• Hi Ho! Hi Ho! Now where did my ancestors go?
• Hooked on Genealogy works for me!
• How can just one ancestor cause so much TROUBLE ??
• Hunting season is all year long in genealogy.
• I am NOT illiterate! My parents WERE SO MARRIED!!
• I checked out my family tree. Just as I thought… poison ivy!
• I collect dead relatives and sometimes a live cousin!
• I finally got it all together. Now where did I put it?
• I found a cuckoo’s nest in my family tree.
• I looked at my family tree…there were two dogs using it.
• I looked into my family tree and found out I was a sap.
• I never steal taglines – I’m a genealogist – I just adopt them.
• I only work on Genealogy on days that end in “Y”.
• I researched my family tree… apparently I don’t exist!
• I shook my family tree, a bunch of nuts fell out.
• I should have asked them BEFORE they died!
• I think my ancestors had several “bad heir” days.
• I think my family tree is a few branches short of full bloom.
• I think that I shall never see a completed Genealogy!
• I trace my family history so I will know who to blame.
• I used to have a life, then I started doing genealogy.
• I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather…. not screaming and yelling like the passangers in his car…
• I want to find ALL of them! So far I only have a few thousand.
• I wonder if a “Missing Persons Bulletin” would locate my g-g-grandpa?
• I’d love to, but I’m converting from Julian to Gregorian!
• I’d rather look for dead people than have ‘em look for me.
• If only people came with pull-down menus and on-line help.
• If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton – George Bernard Shaw
• If your family tree doesn’t fork, you might be a redneck.
• I’m always late. My ancestors must have arrived on the Juneflower.
• I’m no genealogist. … Until this year I spelled it “GeneOlogist!”
• I’m not crazy, but I may have lost my census!
• I’m not sick, I’ve just got fading genes.
• I’m not stuck, I’m ancestrally challenged.
• I’m searching for myself; have you seen me?
• I’m stuck in my family tree, and I can’t get down.
• In MY family…. CRAZY is a relative term!
• Is your family tree evergreen or deciduous?
• Isn’t genealogy fun? The answer to one problem, leads to a dozen more!
• It is hereditary in my family not to have children.
• It’s 1999. Do you know where your great-grandparents were?
• It’s a poor family that hath neither a whore or a thief.
• It’s hard to be humble with ancestors like mine!
• It’s hard to believe that someday I’ll be an ancestor.
• I’ve fallen into my family tree and I can’t get out!
• I’ve got YOUR family tree all staked out!!
• Jeanealogy: the study of LEVIS and WRANGLERS.
• Just when you think you’ve found them all, up pops another!
• Kinship: it`s all relative!
• Learn from your parents mistakes – use birth control!
• Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards.
• Life is too short and you’re dead too long.
• Life takes it’s toll. Have exact change ready!
• Life, liberty and the right to know who your ancestors are.
• Live so the preacher won’t have to lie at your funeral!
• Looking for needles in haystacks.
• Many a family tree needs trimming.
• Marriage is….. breeding in captivity!!
• May all your family trees branch toward the stars!
• May the Saint of Genealogists Bless You!
• May you ask the right question of the right person at the right time.
• Misers are hard to live with but they make great ancestors.
• Most of my family roots are underground.
• My ancestors are Copyrighted. You have my permission to use the data.
• My ancestors are hiding in a witness protection program.
• My ancestors did WHAT?!?
• My family came on the Mayflower…or was it Allied?
• My family coat of arms ties at the back…..is that normal?
• My family tree died in the last drought.
• My family tree is a few branches short! Help appreciated.
• My family tree is full of NOT holes… it’s NOT him, it’s NOT her!!!
• My family tree is in the forest, somewhere!
• My family tree is lost in the forest.
• My family tree keeps leaning to the east!!
• My family tree must have been used for firewood.
• My genes are so tight, they may stay with me forever.
• My hobby is genealogy,, and I raise dust bunnies as pets.
• My life has become one large Gedcom!!
• My problems are all relative.
• My roots only go down so far, but my branches spread forever!
• No – yes – maybe – could be – perhaps. Musings of a genealogist.
• Not tonight dear, I just got the new versions of MG & FTM!
• Nothing ventured, nothing gained, no one found!
• Okay, so I don’t descend from anyone… now what?
• Old genealogists never die, they just haunt cemeteries.
• Old genealogists never die, they just lose their census.
• Old Genealogists never die. They just haunt Archives.
• Olly, olly, oxen free! All hiding ancestors can come out NOW!
• Once I gave up on reality, I had so many more options.
• One of the most difficult things to give away is kindness, it is usually returned!
• Only a Genealogist regards a step backwards as progress.
• Originality is the art of concealing your sources.
• Others work from sun to sun! But a genealogists work is never done!!
• Pruning the Family Tree is NOT permitted!
• RELATIVES…People who come to dinner who aren’t friends.
• Remember, undocumented genealogy is mythology.
• Research: What I’m doing, when I don’t know what I’m doing.
• Researching [YOUR NAME] anytime, anywhere, any takers?
• Searching for lost relatives? Win the Lottery!
• Searching for roots beats chasing dust bunnies!
• Searching shipping records? Simply naval gazing.
• Shake your family tree and watch the nuts fall!
• Share your knowledge, it is a way to achieve immortality.
• Sharing genealogy is a rewarding experience!
• Shh! Be vewy, vewy quiet…I’m hunting forebearers.
• Sign of a redneck: circular family tree.
• Snobs talk as if they had begotten their own ancestors!
• Snoopers welcome! Feel free to provide comments and relatives!
• So many ancestors…so little time!
• So many dead men! So little time!
• Someday YOU’LL be an ancestor too!
• Sometimes you find an ancestor hanging from the family tree!
• Still trying to decorate my family tree.
• Sure, a real job would be nice, but it would interfere with my genealogy!
• Take nothing but ancestors, leave nothing but records.
• That’s strange; half my ancestors are WOMEN!
• That’s the problem with the gene pool: No lifeguard.
• The black sheep keeps the best info on the family.
• The fellow who leans on his family tree may never get out of the woods.
• The gene pool could use a little chlorine!
• Theory of relativity: If you go back far enough, we’re all related.
• There are no answers, only cross-references.
• There is no fire, officer! I’m just chasing my ancestors!
• There is no such thing as a useless piece of information.
• There is strength them there Roots.
• They’ve said *you* are the fertilizer of your family tree!
• Time and Genealogy waits for no man.
• To a genealogist, EVERYTHING is relative!
• Trees without roots fall over.
• Try genealogy. You can’t get fired and you can’t quit!
• Warning!! There are no lifeguards in the gene pool!
• We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then it gets worse.
• We shall find no ancestor before his time.
• We shall gather at the river (or the genealogy library if it rains).
• What do you mean my “grandparents didn’t have any kids”?
• What do you mean my Birth Certificate expired?
• What do you mean my family tree has root rot!
• What have you done with my ancestors’ papers??
• When I searched for ancestors, I found friends!
• When marriage is outlawed only outlaws will have inlaws.
• When tracing ancestors, please stay within the lines!
• When you marry, your family tree can become a forest.
• When your mind goes blank, don’t forget to turn off the sound!
• Whoever said “seek and ye shall find” was NOT a genealogist.
• Who’s in charge of washing the Family Group Sheets?
• Why are there so many gnarled limbs on my family tree?
• With MY luck, my family tree has root-rot!
• Yikes! My genes are faded and full of holes!
• Your genealogy is never done!!