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I am a direct descendent of Catherine the Great.

That is really great. Must be related. I am descended form Charles the Hammer Martel, Some Egyptian Pharaoh, some Caesars, Kings of Jerusalem, a bunch of Knights...

Now for my real brag, I am not related to Obama.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm also related to Charles the Hammer Martel. I'e read that something like one out of every seventeen people of European descent is, with an even higher concentration of people of European descent in America as I shall explain at the end of this post.

I'm also in the direct bloodline of both William of Normandy and Harold, King of the Saxons whom his army killed at Hastings.

William the Conqueror is an ancestor nobody wants to brag about. The guy cranked out bastard children like a tom cat in heat and so did many of the children. I haven't seen any definite statistics, but I'd be willing to wager that even more people with roots in England are related to him than Charles Martel, who had the advantage of several generations and, if memory serves me well, is also an ancestor of William.

Another interesting factoid is that many of the most prominent puritans can trace their ancestry back to Plantagenet royalty. This may include the common ancestor (surname Hinckley) between ObaMao and Dick Cheney, who is also in my family tree.

After Henry VII put an end to the Plantagenet royal line at the battle of Bosworth Field, many of them found religion in the ensuing century and a half.

Interesting stuff!

I'm descended from Charles Martel, too. But so much can happen in the way of indiscretions through all the unions going back that far it's just fun to think about. I shouldn't take any of it too seriously and, even so, I'm sure most of my ancestors were peasants or more recently farmers.

If your descent from Charles Martel is through Henry I or Henry II, you are probably related to Obama because he is descended from them.

Here is a great site I find very credible to run your royal ancestry down if you have a gateway American ancestor:

http://www.genealogics.org

Don't let the fact that it is an Australian site put you off. I met the gentleman who owns it and also a 9th cousin who was very knowledgeable on the rootsweb Plantagenet newsgroup.

If you have American Farwell anestry, it is almost certain you have royal ancestors. The gateway ancestress is Olive Welby who was married to Henry Farwell, a simple tailor. I have them 2 or 3 ways but can't find sufficient proof how the lineage goes.