lostlucy

Barack Obama makes much of his varied heritage. His father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas. But there is one element of his family history that has remained obscure: his eighth cousin is Dick Cheney.

The revelation that the man promising a new style of politics is related to a vice-president credited with an unprecedented attempt to consolidate the power of old politics was made by Mr Cheney's wife.
Lynne Cheney told an interviewer that she discovered the connection between her husband and the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination while researching a memoir of growing up in Wyoming, entitled Blue Skies, No Fences, although she did not include this fact in her memoir. She said that the two were both descended from a man who moved to Wyoming from Maryland.

"If you go back eight generations they have a common ancestor," she said. "This is such an amazing American story that one ancestor ... could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick's and Barack Obama." A spokeswoman for Mrs Cheney said that Mr Obama was descended from Mareen Duvall, a French Huguenot. His son married the granddaughter of one Richard Cheney, Susannah, who arrived in Maryland from England in the late 1650s.
The Duvalls are Mr Obama's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, and the vice-president's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents

from CNN: Reacting to the news, Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton told CNN's Dana Bash with tongue in cheek, "Obviously, Dick Cheney is sort of the black sheep of the family."

AND last night on Jay Leno, Barack said: "Well, I don't want to go on the family hunting trip, I know that!"