奧巴馬與共和黨奪位議員竟是表親
It was bad enough that President Barack Obama lost his US Senate super majority to a Republican. Now it turns out he also lost it to a relative.
Genealogists said on Friday that the Democratic president and the newly elected senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, are 10th cousins.
The New England Historic Genealogical Society said Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Brown's mother, Judith Ann Rugg, both descend from Richard Singletary of Haverhill, Massachusetts.
He died in 1687 at, for the time, the unusually old age of 102.
"I think it's a really interesting thing, where you have the separation between a Democrat and a Republican, but you have one link," said David Allen Lambert, the society genealogist who co-discovered the connection with colleague Chris Child.
Lambert said the work was aided by prior research about Obama, as well as Brown's cooperation with the society when researchers first contacted him in December.
"I'm glad to be in such distinguished company," Brown said of the findings.
In 2008, the society discovered that Obama is related to seven prior presidents, including George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. They also learned he was related to actor Brad Pitt.
Brown, once a little-known state senator, jolted the national political landscape by capturing the Senate seat held for nearly a half-century by the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.
When he is seated, Brown will become the 41st Republican in the Senate. That means the Democrats will no longer hold the 60-vote supermajority needed to overcome Republican procedural maneuvers to block votes on legislation such as a health care reform bill, Obama's top legislative priority.
The genealogical chart shows that Obama descends from Richard's eldest son, Jonathan Singletary. He later changed his surname to Dunham. Brown, meanwhile, descends from Jonathan's brother, Nathaniel Singletary.
美國總統貝拉克•奧巴馬所在的民主黨近日失去了在參議院的絕對多數席位，這已經很讓人掃興，而日前研究人員發現，搶去這關鍵一席的共和黨人竟是他的親戚。
系譜學家於上週五稱，身爲民主黨人的奧巴馬總統和馬薩諸塞州新當選參議員斯科特•布朗竟是第十代表親。
據新英格蘭歷史宗譜學會考證，奧巴馬的母親斯坦利•安•鄧納姆和布朗的母親朱迪絲•安•魯格都是馬薩諸塞州黑弗里爾一個名叫理查德•新格爾特里的人的後代。
此人於1687年去世，享年102歲，這在當時十分罕見。
該學會系譜學家戴維•艾倫•蘭伯特說：“我覺得這是一件十分有趣的事情。他們分屬民主黨和共和黨，但卻有血親關係。”蘭伯特和同事克里斯•查爾德共同發現了這一聯繫。
蘭伯特表示，此前對奧巴馬的研究對這一發現有一定的幫助，同時研究人員於去年12月首次與布朗取得聯繫時，他也十分配合。
布朗聽聞這一消息後說：“我很高興能有如此著名的親戚。”
該學會於2008年發現奧巴馬與美國七位前總統沾親帶故，其中包括老布什、小布什、吉米•卡特、傑拉德•福特、林登•約翰遜、哈利•S•杜魯門以及詹姆士•麥迪遜。研究人員還發現奧巴馬與影星布拉德•皮特也是遠親。
布朗之前只是一個名不見經傳的州議員，他於最近奪取了已故民主黨參議員愛德華•肯尼迪佔據近半個世紀的參議員席位，震驚全美政壇。
布朗就職後將成爲參議院第41名共和黨議員，這意味着民主黨將失去60票的絕對多數席位。而只有獲得絕對多數席位，民主黨才能阻止共和黨利用程序性策略來阻礙法案的通過，比如奧巴馬政府的首要政策目標醫療改革方案。
這份族譜表明，奧巴馬是理查德長子喬納森•新格爾特里的後代。喬納森之後改姓鄧納姆。而布朗則是喬納森的兄弟納撒尼爾的後代。
Vocabulary:
genealogist: a person who studies family history（系譜學家）
little-known：unknown to most people（鮮爲人知的）
jolt：to shock emotionally or psychologically（震驚，震動）
