Well, we don't have rock solid evidence, but according to trashy romance novel author and geneology hobbyist Lynne Cheney, Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are apparently Eighth Cousins.
From MSNBC:
According to her spokeswoman, Sen. Obama, D-Ill., is a descendent of Mareen Duvall. This French Huguenot’s son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650s from England, said Ginny Justice, a spokeswoman for Lynne Cheney.
At least that what she claims. But is this really that stunning? Follow over the fold for some fun with numbers!
So the story goes, both one of America's greatest villians and one of America's brightest young talent's share a common ancestor: Mareen Duvall. One wonders: Could I be related to Cheney? Just how many decendants of this Mareen character are running around? Well, not having access to Lynne Cheney's cliffnotes, I've decided to use available facts and figures to estimate the number of progeny from Mareen Duvall.
First, 'Richard Cheney' is said to have arrived in the American colonies in the late 1650's. For purposes of this discussion, we will assume he was of adult age when he made the trip and had a child two or three years after arriving. This child would have been of child raising age about 20 yrs later. So we approximate the birth date of Mareen Duvall's wife at 1675.
Second, we need to determine how many generations will yield eighth cousins. Two generations produce siblings. The third generation will produce first cousins. A fourth generation will produce second cousins. And so on and so forth. So eighth cousins requires ten generations. (this is assuming for sake of expediency that Dick and Barack are on the same tier of progeny)
Third, we need to correlate each generation with a Total Fertility Rate.
The total fertility rate of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime.
I've found TFR's here going back to 1800. Although TFR's are not available before this year, it is known that this is the period when the fertility rates began to decline for a variety of reasons explained in the link. For years before 1800, I will use the rate from 1800, although they may have been higher.
Fourth, ten generations from Mareen Duvall's wife (born c.1675) to Dick Cheney (born 1941) covers a span of 266 years, an average of 26.6 years per generation. The following list of total progeny from this marriage is an estimate using average Total Fertility Rate and the year that generation would be born.
1701 7.04
1728 49.56
1754 348.9
1781 2456.35
1808 17292.7
1834 113,267
1861 590,122
1887 2,685,058
1914 9,182,899
1941 20,386,036
That right, the tenth generation of Mareen Duvall and (Jane Doe)Cheney encompasses 20.3 Million People. That's just from that generation. Other living progeny from the next(Elizabeth and Mary Cheney's) generation includes 71.9 Million People. Now, if you add those mostly living generations together, you get 92.2 MILLION PEOPLE, or
a whopping 30.7 percent of the US population are related to both Dick Cheney and Barack Obama
Yes, yes, I know, these are very rough numbers and don't account for those who have died before bearing children, whether from disease or war (insert chickenhawk joke here). But, not having access to Lynne Cheney's geneology notes, its the best I could do. The numbers indeed sound staggering, but such is the interconnectedness of the human family.