George Clooney and Abraham Lincoln are family

Clooney is the half first cousin — five generations later of Lincoln — of the 16th president of America


Reuters November 01, 2012

George Clooney is apparently a distant cousin of former US president Abraham Lincoln — a Republican considered to be one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States.

Clooney is the half first cousin — five generations later of Lincoln — of the 16th president of America, according to ancestry.com. The genealogy website breaks down the connection, explaining that ‘half’ means two of their ancestors were ‘half-siblings’ — Lincoln’s mother Nancy Hanks was the half-sister of Clooney’s fourth great-grandmother Mary Ann Sparrow.

Hanks and Sparrow shared the same mother, Lucy Hanks, but had different fathers. Lucy Hanks was Lincoln’s maternal grandmother as well as the fifth great-grandmother of Clooney.

Clooney, long noted for his political activism, is a major Hollywood backer of current US president, Barack Obama. He hosted a Democratic Party fundraiser at his Los Angeles home in March that raised $15 million. While he may be a supporter of Obama, his blood relation remains intact with Lincoln — a Civil War American president. 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2012.

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