Romney Leads Obama in Presidential Genes

Long before most Americans knew who Barack Obama was, and before most forecasters thought he had a chance of being nominated, we brought you the story of Barack Obama’s Presidential Genes.

So for the 2012 Presidential Election we decided to revisit the subject using a new digital resource that did not exist at the time of the 2008 Presidential Election, the Family Forest® National Treasure.

For a head-to-head comparison, I generated Family Forest® kinship reports(# 10) for both President Obama and Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In the quantity category, it was a very close race.

In the Family Forest® National Treasure Mitt Romney is related through birth or marriage to 35 U.S. Presidents (one of them is President Obama) and 18 U.S. Vice Presidents. President Obama is related through birth or marriage to 33 U.S. Presidents and 16 U.S. Vice Presidents.

It is in the quality category that Mitt Romney substantially wins over President Obama.

President Obama has only one single digit cousin (9th cousin or closer) who was either a U.S. President or a U.S. Vice President, President Hoover (8th cousin three times removed, 8C3R).

Mitt Romney has 14 single digit cousins who were either a U.S. President or a U.S. Vice President, and eight of them were Presidents.

In order of closeness, they are President Grant (5C4R), President Cleveland (6C3R), Vice President Curtis (6C3R), President Fillmore (6C4R), Vice President Colfax (6C4R), Vice President Morton (6C5R), President Harding (7C1R), President Franklin Roosevelt (8C1R), President Ford (8C1R), Vice President Rockefeller (8C2R), President Taft (8C3R), Vice President Wallace (9C), President Hoover (9C1R), and Vice President Humphrey (9C3R).

The newest release of the Family Forest® was called National Treasure because among other abilities, it is an educational resource that networks more Americans through generation-by-generation family ties to more of the key people, places, and events in U.S. history than any other single digital resource, including Facebook.

Genealogy and the 84th Academy Awards

Will genetics be a factor in bringing home an Oscar this year?

It appears that it may have been at the Golden Globes this year. Michelle Williams won for Best Actress for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe.  Could her award-winning performance have been because they share ancestors?

When I ran a Family Forest kinship report [# 10] for Michelle, I discovered that according to the large web of ancestral history already mapped out in the Family Forest, Michelle and Marilyn are cousins.

According to recorded history, they are ninth cousins once removed through their Peabody/Paybody ancestors, and they both have a number of other entertainment cousins who are also descended from the early Peabody/Paybody family of Massachusetts.

Those cousins include Glenn Close (one of Michelle’s competitors at the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards this year), Kyra Sedgwick, Halle Berry, Racquel Welch, Grace Slick, Mark Wahlberg, David Hyde Pierce, Orson Welles, Robert Lansing, and if you consider the political arena to be entertaining, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman.

Kristine and I will be tuning into ABC on Sunday Febraury 26^th to watch the 84th Academy Awards and see if Michelle wins the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of her cousin, Marilyn Monroe, or if one of her other cousins wins (Michelle is also a distant cousin of Meryl Streep).