Camilla Parker Bowles and Hillary Clinton are cousins, study reveals

Now that you mention it, I can see the similarities. The brittle, bottle-blonde hairstyles, steely personalities and the ability to inspire both deep antipathy and ardent affection in their respective populaces. So perhaps the news that Hillary Clinton and Camilla Parker-Bowles also share a common ancestor should come as no great shock.

The Democratic candidate and the wife of the heir to the British throne are ninth cousins once removed, according to a newly-released study by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. The pair are both descended from Jean Guyon and Elisabeth Couillard who lived in Quebec back when it was a French colony.

Perhaps less instantly believable is the revelation that Clinton is also related to Angelina Jolie, though admittedly the pair do share a political bent. The former first lady’s French-Canadian heritage also links her to Madonna, Alanis Morrisette, Celine Dion and Jack Kerouac.

“With all of that singing talent in the family, you think she’d be able to carry a tune,” joked Philippe Reines, a senior Clinton adviser.

Meanwhile Barack Obama has a prolific presidential lineage, perhaps auguring well for his bid to become the first African-American in the White House. 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 cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney (a connection revealed last year by Lynne Cheney), British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.

He is also a distant cousin of the actor Brad Pitt, Jolie’s partner, which could make for a rather interesting family reunion.

John McCain’s ancestry was apparently harder to trace due to his roots in the South, where there are challenges to genealogical research. But he is a sixth cousin of Laura Bush, whose husband ran a vicious campaign against him when competing for the Republican nomination in 2000. Just goes to prove you can’t trust family where politics is concerned…

Visit www.newenglandancestors.org for the full results of the study.

Comments

[JOhn Bush]

What utter nonsense!!!

[Patrice Bernier]

This is interesting. Senator Clinton has one up on Ms. Parker-Bowles. She has succeeded in having only one marriage.
Both, though, are spritely. Women with extraordinary insight and knowledge and with regard public and personal issues and international relations add so much to our social systems.
Thank you for this blip on political relations.

[Daphne Kenward]

The only thing Hillary & Camilla have in relation to each other is their cheating Husbands, and being very un popular, I would think this new claim is the same as her claims in Bosnia, a farce. I am surprised she did not stretch her imiginations a bit further, and claim to be the queen's sister.

[karvictho]

All this inbreeding would explain a thing or two.

[jt]

oh my gawd - another reason to not vote for Hillary in 2008...

[Jo]

I checked in hoping to get a summary of Obama's speech on Wall Street.

So far this is what I have gleaned of his economic policy:
a) fiscal discipline - pay as we go
b) commitment to the free market
c) commitment to market oversight and matching the sophistication of market regulation to the sophistication of contemporary financial instruments; regulating what we offer (e.g., mortgages) not who we are (i.e., banks, brokers, etc)
and then I got lost in the detail.

[Peter Farrington]

Ninth cousins isn't any sort of relationship and this is a non-story. Probably every native British person living in the British Isles is a ninth cousin of everyone else. A rough calculation suggests we have over 100,000 ninth-cousins foillowing only one trail of descent, and if each ancestor had only 4 children. So the chance that we have a relation of ninth cousin to our neighbours is huge, more or less 100%.

[Helen]

There is no actual proof that Hillary Clinton and Camilla The Duchess of Cornwall are nineth cousin's once removed. It's all based on genealogical records. One of the mother's or both of them might have had an affair with another man and claimed that the issue was that of their husband. The husband may have brought home the issue of his mistress for his wife to claim as her own. Nine generations once removed ago who could prove otherwise.

[Helen]

There is no proof that Hillary Clinton and Camilla The Duchess of Cornwall are nineth cousins once removed. It's all based on genealogical records. What if one of the mother's or both of them had an affair with another man and claimed that it was her husband's child? What if the husband brought home his mistresses issue for his wife as her own? Nineth cousin's once removed ago who can prove they are nineth cousin's once removed?

[Alan]

Mrs Clinton might have had only one *marriage* (quote from coincidentallly named(?) John BUSH), but I think it is fair to say that her husband seems to have had a fair number of *partners*. And I wonder how 'married' they really are, in the normally accepted sense of the word. What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall when Bill comes into the bedroom at night after a pint or two, feeling frolicky...

[David Allen]

Poor Camilla.

[Greg Lorriman]

Poor Camilla. That closely related! Ouch!

[IAN PAYNE]

I thought George Bush and Queen Elizabeth II were related - seriously !!!!

[John Chuckman, Toronto, Canada]

Genes really do tell, don't they?

[Richard Madge]

9th cousin? On the basis you have 1024 great x 8 grandparents (this relationship of 9th cousin) and multiply by the number of people in the country now, offset against the actual population at the time, people are likely to be related to themselves several times over, especially in country areas and you can pretty-much link anybody to anybody else [except the Windsors of course who came from Germany]

[bar40]

They are both untrustworthy and polarizing b@#$%s.

[ROBERT]

Never read such a load of clap trap in my life,I have told myself never to do so again,'mind it is Sunday morning.

[Robbo]

I'm directly related to Adam & Eve.

[A Senoga]

could i be having distant cousins somewhere in ireland?. i was told that my name could once have ended with "ue" hence Senogue.

[Mary]

Of course, we are ALL related!

[Justin]

It's extremely difficult to believe that Obama is actually related to so many former US presidents.

That [would] augur well for his bid to become the first African-American president, however.