Genealogist: Obama, Mass. Sen.-elect Brown related

[January 29, 2010]  BOSTON (AP) -- It was bad enough that President Barack Obama lost his filibuster-proof margin in the U.S. Senate to a Republican. Now it turns out he also lost it to a relative.

Genealogists said Friday the Democratic president and the newly elected Massachusetts senator, Scott Brown, are 10th cousins.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society says Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Brown's mother, Judith Ann Rugg, both descend from Richard Singletary of Haverhill, Mass.

He died in 1687 at 102.

Obama descends from Richard's eldest son, Jonathan Singletary. He later changed his surname to Dunham. Scott Brown descends from Jonathan's brother, Nathaniel Singletary.

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On the Net:

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/

[Associated Press]

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