Pitt, Jolie related to Obama, Clinton

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are distant relatives of US presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, reports say.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society discovered the connection between the Hollywood couple and the two leading Democratic candidates.

Genealogist Christopher Child told the Associated Press: "It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn't necessarily expect."

Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who died in 1769; while Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, linked by their ancestry to Jean Cusson, who died in Quebec in 1718.

Clinton, whose mother is French-Canadian, is also a distant cousin to singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette.

Child claimed that Obama has "kinships across the political spectrum".

His presidential lineage includes George W. Bush and his father, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman. He is also related to wartime British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Camilla Parker-Bowles.