Can you imagine Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican Vice President Dick Cheney at the same family reunion?
Yes, indeed, these two gentlemen who come from different spectrums of the political world are related – distantly of course!
You didn’t know that? Surprise! They probably didn’t didn’t know it either. But that’s just the type of delightfully astonishing nuggets of information genealogists uncover. And you thought genealogy was just for little old ladies who wanted to track their ancestors back to the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock!
Obama and Cheney are related how?
Just for the record, let’s briefly explain how Obama and Cheney ended up to be . . . well, cousins, it appears.
Obama and Cheney share a distant relative, Mareen Duvall, an immigrant from France who came to this country in the 1600s. Mareen and Susannah Duvall are Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. These same ancestors are Cheney’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents.
Just for the record, that makes the two politicians ninth cousins once removed!
So, now do you think genealogy is stuffy and dull?
It certainly isn’t! In fact nothing makes your family history appear more alive and vibrant than digging up the roots to your family tree – and to see who awaits you.
Perhaps you knew it all along. But for those of you who didn’t, this first step in your journey of discovering your family roots is sure to excite you.
As the family genealogist, you will now view family mementos and heirlooms from an entirely new perspective. These items are now more than nice items from the past. They are your keys to documenting your family history.
What kind of information and forms would this include? The quick and simple answer to this question is . . . everything. Every photo is documentation, every newspaper clipping can yield clues to your past, even the smallest scrap of paper can be considered documentation to help verify a story.
Here are just a few of the more common items that just about every
family has lying around in somebody’s attic or spare bedroom:
• Military discharge papers
• Diaries
• Baptism certificates
• Club memberships
• Letters – especially from those individuals who were serving in the
military
• Birth certificates
• Report cards
• Newspaper clippings
• Death certificates
• Awards of any kind
• Programs from special events
• Photos
• Post cards
Consider yourself the official detective of your family. You never really know where your next clue may be found. Use all these tools to help you sniff out that next piece of information that will steer you toward discovering the existence of a relative you never knew you even had!
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