Distant Celebrity Relatives

His election may spell an end to health-care reform, but maybe now Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown will be forgiven by President Obama—it was just discovered the politicians are 10th cousins. Both of their mothers descended from Richard Singletary of Haverhill, Massachusetts, who died in 1687. Brown’s response? “I’m glad to be in such distinguished company.” But Obama’s surprising lineage doesn’t stop there. Perhaps the most shocking of the president’s many distant relatives is…Dick Cheney. Lynne Cheney made the announcement in 2007 that she discovered a link between Obama and her husband when researching a famous Huguenot in Maryland’s history for a book. Another distant cousin of Obama’s is Brad Pitt, who is linked to the president via Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769, according to an eager researcher at The New England Historic Genealogical Society.