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15 December 2009updated 27 Sep 2015 5:42am

Are Obama and Warren Buffett related?

The pair may be distant cousins

By George Eaton

The world’s greatest investor, Warren Buffett, has always been well disposed to Barack Obama and used some of his $62bn fortune to support his presidential campaign. Now new genealogical research has found the relationship between the US president and the Sage of Omaha may be deeper than first thought.

A study of Obama’s family tree by Ancestry.com revealed that the pair are seventh cousins three times removed, related through a 17th-century Frenchman named Mareen Duvall. According to the researchers, Duvall, who emigrated from France to Maryland in the 1650s, is Obama’s ninth great-grandfather and Buffett’s sixth great-grandfather.

Were Obama an avaricious man, he would undoubtedly explore whether he stands to inherit a share of Buffett’s wealth. But given that the billionaire has pledged to leave most of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation it’s just as well that he isn’t.

 

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