奥巴马与共和党夺位议员竟是表亲

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.

美国总统贝拉克．奥巴马所在的民主党近日失去了在参议院的绝对多数席位，这已经很让人扫兴，而日前研究人员发现，抢去这关键一席的共和党人竟是他的亲戚。

系谱学家于上周五称，身为民主党人的奥巴马总统和马萨诸塞州新当选参议员斯科特．布朗竟是第十代表亲。

据新英格兰历史宗谱学会考证，奥巴马的母亲斯坦利．安．邓纳姆和布朗的母亲朱迪丝．安．鲁格都是马萨诸塞州黑弗里尔一个名叫理查德．新格尔特里的人的后代。

此人于1687年去世，享年102岁，这在当时十分罕见。

该学会系谱学家戴维．艾伦．兰伯特说：“我觉得这是一件十分有趣的事情。他们分属民主党和共和党，但却有血亲关系。”兰伯特和同事克里斯．查尔德共同发现了这一联系。

兰伯特表示，此前对奥巴马的研究对这一发现有一定的帮助，同时研究人员于去年12月首次与布朗取得联系时，他也十分配合。

布朗听闻这一消息后说：“我很高兴能有如此著名的亲戚。”

该学会于2008年发现奥巴马与美国七位前总统沾亲带故，其中包括老布什、小布什、吉米．卡特、杰拉德．福特、林登．约翰逊、哈利．S．杜鲁门以及詹姆士．麦迪逊。研究人员还发现奥巴马与影星布拉德．皮特也是远亲。

布朗之前只是一个名不见经传的州议员，他于最近夺取了已故民主党参议员爱德华．肯尼迪占据近半个世纪的参议员席位，震惊全美政坛。

布朗就职后将成为参议院第41名共和党议员，这意味着民主党将失去60票的绝对多数席位。而只有获得绝对多数席位，民主党才能阻止共和党利用程序性策略来阻碍法案的通过，比如奥巴马政府的首要政策目标医疗改革方案。

这份族谱表明，奥巴马是理查德长子乔纳森．新格尔特里的后代。乔纳森之后改姓邓纳姆。而布朗则是乔纳森的兄弟纳撒尼尔的后代。

Vocabulary:

genealogist: a person who studies family history（系谱学家）

little-known：unknown to most people（鲜为人知的）

jolt：to shock emotionally or psychologically（震惊，震动）