Being adopted, I’ve never really understood the fascination with genealogy that so many people seem to have. There are more than enough nuts in my adoptive family to convince me that it sprang from a wacky root, and I suspect that if I were to look into my own bloodline I’d lose the consolation of telling myself that I share no blood relation to the crazies.

Lynne Cheney might be regretting her fascination with such research these days, too, now that she’s discovered that Vice President Dick Cheney is related to Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama - charismatic anti-war son of a black Kenyan goatherd and white Kansan mother - and Mr. Cheney - immensely powerful and very white Bush administration hawk - are eighth cousins, Mrs. Cheney said.

The Vice-President’s wife said the two men shared an ancestor, a 17th century immigrant from France named Mareen Duvall.

According to Mrs. Cheney, Mr. Obama - Hillary Clinton’s leading rival for the Democratic nomination - is a descendant of Mr. Duvall. The French Huguenot’s son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650s from England.

I don’t see any family reunions in the works, do you?

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