So it all started when I found a great grandmother with the last name “Cheney”. That got me scared. So I tracked down that part of my family tree and found that she, ultimately, descended from John Cheney of Newbury but Dick Cheney descended from William Cheney of Roxbury. There are theories that these two ancestors were related, possibly brothers, but no evidence has been found either way. So I could maintain some plausible deniability that Dick Cheney and I are not 9th cousins 1 time removed. Whew!
But then I found a connection to the Holbrook family, which, ultimately led back to Thomas Holbrook. A note on his page mentioned some U.S. Presidents. I found that James Garfield is my 6th cousin 3 times removed, William Taft is my 5th cousin 3 times removed, and, George W. Bush is my 8th cousin 1 time removed. It is a cruel twist that all of these Presidents were Republicans, though at least two of them had qualifications to actually do the job.
The closest I’ve come to a decent president is Ulysses Grant, but, as near as I can figure out, my connection to that family is via an illegitimate child who was brought up as a Grant.
But, in the end, I’m glad that nobody can prove I’m related to Dick Cheney.