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According to a post on Slashdot:

Every single elected president - INCLUDING Barack Obama, has a genealogy related to President George Washington.

Note I did say Elected President. Gerald Ford is (as of yet), not known to be related to George Washington.

Barck Obama is George Washington's 9th cousin, 6 times removed. Yes, this is through his white mother.

From what I can tell, the least connected elected President was Martin Van Buren - 17th cousin thrice removed.

Also, President William Henry Harrison was related by marraige, not by blood.

my source [geni.com]

This seems to be a rather extraordinary claim.

I'm skeptical of whether this is in fact an extraordinary event. If it is indeed extraordinary I am skeptical of the source.

The claim may not be particularly extraordinary if many or most of American descent are related to George Washington. Are American presidents more related to George Washington than Americans in general? What about the American population as a whole?

In any case, does the source adequately support the conclusion?

rjzii
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Brian M. Hunt
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    Define "related" for the purposes of this discussion. Does mitochondrial Eve count? – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Dec 28 '11 at 01:36
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    I agree with @dmckee...I am related to every US president and every Russian head of state. You need to add some limits to 'related' – Rory Alsop Dec 28 '11 at 09:56
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    @dmckee I think that your comment, if referenced, would be a valid answer! I am simply skeptical this is news at all, not that this is valid. Maybe the fact that [we all share 99.9%](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome#Variation_2) of our DNA should be taken as a *hint* that we are all related? :-) – Sklivvz Dec 28 '11 at 11:01
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    I assume the intention here is "related"=="can trace a geneological relationship." So for this to be true, there would need to be a **known,** researched/documented relationship between every president and Washington, not just for the relationship to exist (which is trivial). – Ziv Dec 28 '11 at 12:11
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    As for being extraordinary, I would guess that relations to George Washington would have good odds of being documented and remembered over time (as opposed to relations to less illustrious forbears); in addition, U.S. Presidents will have more information available about themselves and their relatives than random schmoes. They also tend to come from a single class, and from "higher society" which (a) has been around long enough, and (b) saw merit in lineage, so those might add to the plausibility of the claim. This is just top-of-my-head guesswork, though. – Ziv Dec 28 '11 at 12:14
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    does half sister-in-law’s husband’s nephew really count as related though(harrison)... Though arguably thats closer than third great grandfather’s wife’s 7th great granddaughter’s husband (taft). I would vote no. Interesting question though. But the geni link seems reliable what part are you questioning? – Chad Dec 28 '11 at 14:26
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    @Sklivvz: If you look at the source, it specifies how they are related. Thus, no, dmckee's comment wouldn't qualify as a valid answer. The claim is more complex than can be expressed in a title. – Borror0 Dec 28 '11 at 18:01
  • @Borror0 in that case: NO, just by browsing the genii website... "William J. Clinton, 42nd President of the USA is George Washington, 1st President of the USA's third cousin 6 times removed's husband!" So he's *not* related, his wife is. – Sklivvz Dec 29 '11 at 00:37
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    @Sklivvz: Clinton would be an in-law, which is defined as "a relative by marriage". More generally, the Oxford dictionary defines "relative" as "a person connected by blood or marriage". Is the claim true under Oxford's definition? – Brian M. Hunt Dec 29 '11 at 01:04
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    @BrianM under that definition, you would probably need to check the references for all presidents... something which is probably too broad to be answered. I don't really think there is reason to be skeptic, either: geni.com has a huge tree of 60 millions related people - http://www.geni.com/worldfamilytree - and it happens to include all but one of the presidents of the US. Among 60 other million people. Hardly surprising. – Sklivvz Dec 29 '11 at 10:06
  • @BrianM.Hunt What are you skeptical of? The six degrees of Kevin Bacon? The veracity of the site? I think if you want to validate each presidential link you would need a question for each one. – Chad Dec 29 '11 at 19:44
  • @Sklivvz: One counterexample in the list of presidents would be adequate to prove that the event claimed is not true. Alternatively (and perhaps more validly in light of the records in the database source) to be an American and related to George Washington is perhaps not an extraordinary event. The comments of a genealogical expert would go a long way. :) – Brian M. Hunt Dec 30 '11 at 02:19
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    @BrianM.Hunt basic maths here. If we can assume an average total fertility rate of 4 children per woman, given that we go back a few hundred years, then we can join 60 million people in a family tree with (at least) 13 degrees. Some presidents are 17 degrees separated, so it's mathematically hardly surprising. – Sklivvz Dec 30 '11 at 10:08
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    I'm George Washington's [father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/quotes?qt=qt0466973) ! – user5341 Dec 30 '11 at 17:10
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    @Sklivvz: I'm not sure it is basic maths. I believe the conclusion you are drawing requires a uniform distribution of relations over the generations, and I'm not sure such is the case, as eg one would expect socioeconomic and geographic pockets of related people. The claim seems to be precisely the opposite: that it is extraordinary that all elected presidents would be related to George Washington. By your logic, all presidents would be related to all founding fathers, correct (or do I misunderstand)? How many elected presidents are related to eg John Adams or Benjamin Franklin? – Brian M. Hunt Dec 31 '11 at 23:19
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    @BrianM.Hunt It is not the claim of geni. They have a cluster of 60 million people which includes the presidents and they don't find it surprising at all, and neither do I. The approximate minimum depth of that cluster must be around 13 generations (in the ideal case) or more (in the real case). Some of the presidents are 17 degrees away or so... The numbers, and the claim, are completely unsurprising, and I don't really know: do you expect us to double check the genealogy of all the presidents? – Sklivvz Jan 01 '12 at 02:17
  • Would you like us to verify all of the links that Geni proposes between the presidents and Washington? –  Jul 22 '13 at 10:56
  • This might (also) be a good question for the [genealogy beta site](http://genealogy.stackexchange.com/). – Keith Thompson Jul 22 '13 at 20:15
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    @KeithThompson that sounds like a better place to play Six Degrees Of George Washington, yes. – Shadur Dec 11 '14 at 16:00
  • I'm not sure I would count 17th cousins as being actually related. I picked a 17th cousin of mine at random and the common ancestor was born in 1510. The chances of a single person in either line of descent being wrong (for instance, adopted and this info lost, or the record simply incorrect) is too high. – Michael May 20 '16 at 03:26
  • The [President of Iceland is related to Barack Obama](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Skyldleiki_Gu%C3%B0na_og_Obama.jpg). Genealogy is an odd beast. – gerrit Oct 30 '17 at 21:44

1 Answers1

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Probably correct, but not certainly not surprising

If it is indeed extraordinary I am skeptical of the source.

The source is reliable and the event is not extraordinary.

Like many other sites Geni relies on census records, birth certificates, marriage licenses. And famous people tend to receive an extra level of attention.

The claim itself is rather liberal in its allowances:

  1. As a seventeenth cousin, Van Buren's common ancestor would have been over 400 years earlier (1300s).

  2. The claim is not limited to blood relatives. For example, it states that James Madison is George Washington's "co-brother-in-law" (wife's sister's husband).

With such wide parameters, it's not surprising that all elected U.S. presidents would be related to the first.

Relationships can cover a lot of ground quickly:

  • Genghis Khan who died less than 800 years ago is famously an ancestor of 8% of a large area of Asia.

  • A popular theory with very modest experimental evidence is that everyone is connected by only six direct family/friend/co-worker/associate relationships.

This claims permits spanning dozens of relative links including marriage of powerful people in a single country.

FYI:

  1. In addition to Harrison's non-blood relation mentioned on Slashdot, Madison and Taft are also listed by Gemi as related through marriage.

  2. Though out of scope at the time the claim was made, Donald Trump is also related to George Washington.

  3. Gemi now has Ford's adoptive mother as George Wasington's fifth cousin five times removed.

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Paul Draper
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    Another way to express how remote a 17th cousin is, is to point out that without "pedigree collapse" (the same individual being your ancestor via multiple paths), you would have 262,144 sixteen-greats-grandparents, and every one of their descendants would be a 17th cousin or closer. – IMSoP Oct 30 '19 at 15:05