Genealogists Call Bush and Kerry kin

Honolulu Star-Bulletin ^ | February 16, 2004 | Matt Sedensky

[Scenic Sounds]

Democratic presidential candidates are constantly being compared with the current commander in chief. Now, two Hawaii genealogy buffs say they have proof President Bush and the current Democratic front-runner share similarities thicker than water.

Bruce and Kristine Harrison, publishers of historical databases, traced back the family histories of Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

The result? They're cousins.

Well, 16th cousins, three times removed, to be exact. But cousins, nonetheless.

Truth be told, one might find such distant family ties between Bush and any of the four other major Democratic candidates.

The link between the president and the Rev. Al Sharpton might date back a bit further, Bruce Harrison said, but tracing ancestries helps illuminate a greater message on human interconnectedness, if not one on the centrification of the nation's politics.

"I believe everybody on the planet is related if you go back far enough," said Harrison, 51, whose Millisecond Publishing in Waimea on the Big Island puts out a line of ancestral history CDs. He and his wife have spent the last eight years compiling information from hundreds of genealogical books and periodicals. "We're setting the stage for others to explore their curiosity," he said.

Harrison says the search through family trees also turned up other big-name ancestors of Kerry and Bush. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is the president's ninth cousin, twice removed, while Kerry can count Johnny Appleseed as his sixth cousin, six times removed. Both the president and the Massachusetts senator can claim ties to figures ranging from Charlemagne to Walt Disney to Marilyn Monroe, Harrison said.

For an average user of the Family Forest software, it could be more difficult to find such well-known links, but Harrison says he believes everyone can find some ancestral information in the database.

As for the political adversaries' kinship, the only reunion in store seems to be a debate, should Kerry win his party's nomination. A Bush campaign spokeswoman said she had no comment on the issue. A message left with Kerry's spokesman was not returned.

The Honolulu County Genealogical Society's Mary Ann Bolton said she was not too impressed with those who troll family trees looking for star-studded connections.

"I don't really put too much into that," she said. "That's just bragging rights."

Harrison said his motivation in finding the link wasn't political, nor was it purely curiosity. Since publicizing the Bush-Kerry relation, the number of daily visits to his Web site has more than tripled.

[Scenic Sounds]

Well, they disclosed the Skull and Bones connection, but why did they hide this from us for so long???

[billorites]

[Scenic Sounds]

Yeah, LOL. I guess I don't have to ask where each of these two fit into that scheme, do I?

[BenLurkin]

[A Citizen Reporter]

I attended a genealogical conference in January in which the speaker (who apparentely was a peacenik) actually used an analogy like this to slam President Bush and the War in Iraq. He said that if it could have been proved through DNA evidence that President Bush and Saddam Hussein were related, perhaps we would never have gone to war!


If the guy was trying to sell his subscription internet newsletter on genealogy, he lost this customer!

[Amelia]

She's probably kin to them too.

[Heartlander]

This is getting serious… An OBGYN… Ooops - Genealogist
Sorry, thought this was from Drudge…

[foreverfree]

Alex Jones has been mentioning this off and on infowars.com for the last few days. He's on M-F 12n-3p Eastern time. (Rebroadcast 10p-1a ET) I didn't hear much of the show today so I don't know if he mentioned it again today.

foreverfree

[Scenic Sounds]

LOL. Yeah, I guess we are all in line to wear the British crown. It's really just a matter of what circumstances it would take to advance in the line far enough to make People magazine. ;-)

[Oldeconomybuyer]

When will the mainstream media report that John 'F' Kerry is the 2nd cousin of Herman Munster?

[Scenic Sounds]

LOL. I like that!!

[Oztrich Boy]

He said that if it could have been proved through DNA evidence that President Bush and Saddam Hussein were related, perhaps we would never have gone to war!

Because King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II wouldn't have either.

[John H K]

Yep, almost anyone in this country with a drop of English blood can get back to the English Royal family.

I'm actually Jacqueline Bouvier's 5th cousin, myself. Strangely I ended up not looking anything like any of the Kennedy kids. Go figure.

[John H K]

Yeah, that's as good as that hoary old Feminist nonsense that we wouldn't have wars if women led countries.

Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher on line 1......

[Radioactive]

reminds me of the old saying......what is arkansas favorite vegetable.........pump kin.

[xJones]

Well, 16th cousins, three times removed, to be exact. But cousins, nonetheless.

That's what inbreeding will do for you.

[A Citizen Reporter]

Never get in the way of a liberal's logic. They can stretch it beyond imagination!

IMHO, it's people like him who give genealogists a bad reputation among historians.

[commish]

"I believe everybody on the planet is related if you go back far enough," said Harrison, 51,

I believe thier names where Adam and Eve, Mr. Harrison.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Hmmm. I wonder if these folks are aware of the name change by Lurch's ancestor from Kohn to Kerry.

[GeronL]

Did you know that dogs and humans shared 95% of their genetic code??? ask the darwinists if this means we are related to them instead of monkeys.

I hope this article doesn't make Bush suicidal.