The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Cirt (talk) 06:21, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of notable distant cousins of Barack Obama[edit]

List of notable distant cousins of Barack Obama (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

President Obama, like all humans, has millions of distant cousins. The recent American interest in geneology has enabled us to research our family trees and discover hitherto unknown relationships with people we have never met. President Obama is notable, the "cousins" listed on the page are also notable, the relationships between them are not notable; except maybe as trivia items in an individual bio. Steve Dufour (talk) 03:44, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Please keep. (!Vote subsequently struck; see waay down page.) Whereas the portion of Americans who'd be found to be nth-cousins (nth-times removed) from any one of all the American president surely approaches 100% the greater the value assigned to n (of course!); still, the fact is that the actual percentage of folks as close as third cousins (three-times removed) from the one President Harry Solomon-or-Shippe Truman -- as Barack indeed is! -- remains rather small and the article in question functions rather as a subarticle to the President-elect's Wiki-biography.  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 04:12, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that Presidents Truman and Obama are related could be mentioned in their articles without a need for this one. Steve Dufour (talk) 04:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but say we add that Barack descends from French Huguenot-and-American colonist Mareen DuVal, as does Robert Duvall, and begin to add other notable names to the list and lo and behold what we end up with is -- a list: one which might not be appropriate for a sub-section at Obama's main bio due to weight concerns.  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 04:39, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The same thing could be said about anyone. Is there a special reason that a list of distant cousins should be listed for President Obama? Steve Dufour (talk) 04:56, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia:General notability guideline: If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article."  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 05:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - per WP:IINFO and things like that. You don't get more loosely associated and hardly verifiable than "distant cousins".--Boffob (talk) 04:27, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the comment "hardly verifiable": Geneology is a social science. The article alludes to instances where a relationship is not yet distinctly verifiable by geneologists, such as in the case of Bessie Wallis Warfield.  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 05:05, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per WP:IINFO. So Obama is the tenth cousin, once removed of George W. Bush? You flat out cannot get more indiscriminate and trivial than that. No offence, Justmeherenow, but I simply do not see the relevance, importance or notability of this list. Resolute 06:27, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you trying to say: "Since Barack inherited half of Ann Dunham's genes; and Ann as likely as not inherited as much as one-over-two-to-the-sixth-power of Samuel Dunham's genes and since Samuel as likely as not inherited perhaps one-over-two-to-the-fifth power of Samuel Hinckley's genes -- which means that Obama inherited less than one of Samuel Hinckley's about tweny-five thousand genes -- and since George W. Bush likewise inherited less than one gene from Samuel Hinckley, then the degree to which President Bush and President-elect Obama are related to each other wouldn't be particularly notable"?  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 07:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am saying that if you have to say that, you are spending more time searching for notability than finding it. Resolute 16:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. —  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 06:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - As an occasional genealogist myself, I've never encountered the expression 'half-score-plus-one cousin'. This is all pretty indiscriminate stuff; the fact that a lot of it is claimed and not verified just makes it even more tenuous. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:45, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are editing decisions to be made -- eg whether to delete claimed relationships and keep only verified ones. (OK and my tongue-in-cheek use of "half-score-plus-one," lol.) But do notice that I've now just referenced in the article some notable commentary by the New York Times science writer, who pointed out that a person is as likely as not to be as related to many of the individuals gathered in a crowd on Times Square as that person is to his-or-her all-of-eleventh cousin (the type of cousin George W. Bush is of Obama's).  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 16:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. It is valuable to be reminded that we are all members of one human family, and even these tenuous relationships help bring that home. That is particularly true when the subject represents such a bridge between major strands of the human family as does Obama, and is a prominent figure who is likely to attract attention to the subject. 76.232.63.68 (talk) 13:05, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think that the present public interest in the Obama family tree could be mentioned somewhere in the articles on geneology. Steve Dufour (talk) 16:01, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong delete per WP:LC items 2, 4, 5, 8, and 10. Stifle (talk) 14:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete such a list is not notable and unmaintainable. If we keep this what's next? People who went to school with Barack Obama? Barbers who have cut Barack Obama's hair? Edward321 (talk) 15:32, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Varieties of WP:BEANS that Barack Obama has eaten? Stifle (talk) 16:00, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • People who have played basketball with Barack Obama? :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 16:17, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Assuming that the half-score-plus-one cousin to Bush thing is real (whatever that means), it would be useful to put that in the Obama and Bush articles, and likely for Truman too: after all, Obama is about to be the same thing that makes them famous; but the article as it is now is definitely in violation of list criteria. Nyttend (talk) 15:47, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Wow. I generally support lists as a reasonable way to package information for our readers, but this is just a step or two removed from List of Homo sapiens. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 17:27, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WP:IINFO. --Evb-wiki (talk) 18:01, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Note I've tentatively moved the information to a collapsed table at "Public image of Barack Obama" (here)  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 18:12, 14 November 2008 (UTC) Self-reverted.  ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 18:44, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and many of the stated relationships are speculative besides, and fail verifiability. It is fine to mention brothers (Neil, Jeb and George W. Bush) parents (George H.W. and George W. Bush) or powerful lineages (Prescott, George H.W. and George W.). Political influence gets passed down and shared in such families, just as in the Kennedys. But someone being the umpty-umpth distant cousin of someone else is trivial. Ancestry.com is a site which loves to draw up genealogy charts and speculate about distant ancestors, like 100,000 supposed descendants of Pocahantas. Edison (talk) 20:12, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as it were, I've also now Wiki-contributed a subsection called "More distant genealogical relationships" at the Obama family article:

[See also: List of United States Presidents by genealogical relationship.]

Barack Obama's distant cousins include the multitude of descendants of his maternal ancestors from all along the early-American Atlantic seaboard as well as Kenyan relations belonging to the Luo tribe, many descending from a 17th century ancestor named Owiny.[1][2] For example, George W. Bush, the current U.S. president, is the eleventh cousin of Barack Obama.[3] The New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade has written that the cumulative factor of generations leading back to Obama's and Bush's common progenitor, Samuel Hinckley, means that the U.S. President and the President-elect would each likely share less than one gene (out of the 25,000 or so genes in the human genome) with their distant forebear, and that the chance both men inherited the very same gene is "vanishingly small."[4]

 ${\displaystyle \sim }$ Justmeherenow (  ) 20:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete — I'm sorry, but I think this has also crossed the line into being indiscriminate information. MuZemike (talk) 21:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, just a list of indiscriminate information.  Esradekan Gibb  ^"Talk" 22:29, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Family of Barack Obama, since it is his family, and we already have an article on his family. 76.66.198.46 (talk) 04:41, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete That you can find other famous people related to the President Elect is the genealogical equivalent of Six Degrees of Separation. As Truman Capote found with his parlor game regarding chains of famous people who had sex, it makes for curious conversation, but we don't need a page presenting such trivial connections. It is a sociological and genealogical truism that if you pick some particular prominent American who has ancestors in the country before 1800, they are likely to be related to other prominent American(s). It says something about the country that such generic connections exist. It says nothing about the specific individuals involved. We learn nothing more about Obama as a person or politician by knowing that he had an ancestor living in the 17th century who is also the ancestor of other people. Whom those particular people happen to be is nothing but coincidence. People are related, so what. Agricolae (talk) 04:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Adamc714 (talk) 08:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Obscure genealogical connections are unencyclopaedic trivia not important to our understanding of the man. The media talking about something in their desperation to find new stuff does not make something notable. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete ASAP. It's full of wp:or, unconfirmed entrys and BLP vios. Just took some out. If I keep going, (also taking too far related cousins out), there will be less than a stub left. --The Magnificent Clean-keeper (talk) 15:08, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - There's no need to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with notable people's families. --GoodDamon 15:36, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• strong delete as stated when this was removed from the Family of Barack Obama page these happen-stance relations are neither new nor note-worthy as they are run every election cycle (and seem to regurgitate the same people). The source of Odinga dosent even link to Barack Obama but based on word of mouth only.Sourcechecker419 (talk) 17:38, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as a WP:IINFO violation. -- Biruitorul ^Talk 17:56, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- Raven1977 (talk) 21:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. If we stipulate that an average person has three children, and no one intermarries with "relatives", then that means Obama (and every person) has around 177,147 "10th cousins". If you add the "N-times removed" the number gets much larger. This could be an unwieldy list :-). LotLE×talk 21:43, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as per WP:IINFO Brothejr (talk) 22:32, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Merge even though I am an ardent defender of lists on Wikipedia. The phrase "distant cousins" is incredibly vague; every single notable person that doesn't have a closer relationship with Obama is a distant cousin, and given enough time and research those relationships may very well be verifiable. I don't see how this fulfills the criteria laid out at WP:LISTS and WP:CLN. --otherlleft (talk) 03:04, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments on my change of mind are below.--otherlleft (talk) 13:13, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Taken back a few million generations, my dog is my distant cousin. bd2412 T 07:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Random collection of arbitrarily selected facts. --Pretty Green (talk) 14:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - A cobbled-together random list of unimportant trivia. Quite possibly the worst Wikipedia article I've ever seen. Tarc (talk) 18:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I AfDed it but actually I have seen worse. :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 05:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• blank/redirect but keep edit history. A brief list of those mentioned in major media can be added to Obama family. Fwiiw, the criterion of has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, is clearly met in this case. --dab (𒁳) 19:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Obama family in case anyone searches for this. --Explodicle (T/C) 20:04, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Please keep. Bloodline still plays an important part in society, especially to the elite who believe that they have superior genetics to the common people. Freemasons also highly regard bloodline. It is often noted on Wikipedia which religious, corporate and political organizations that a person belongs to, as well as ethnic background and nationality. I see no reason to turn a blind eye to blood lineage. Not only does this subject interest people, but several mainstream sources felt it important enough to print or broadcast. Realistically the odds of being fifth cousins with Obama are extremely slight, and when you find out how many individuals within that field alone either happen to find themselves in positions of political power, corporate success or famous in highly competitive fields of talent, how could you say that it is unimportant?

Let's do the math. Let's presume that each couple in a certain bloodline has three offspring (that's being generous.) Three siblings would therefore have three cousins from each of the two aunts/uncles from either side of one parent's family (as their father would have been one of three siblings, etc.) All four sets of first cousins would total 12. To reach the category of second cousin, you have to go back a step before the hypothetical parents, to their own aunts and uncles (again two siblings each, minus themselves.) This would total 36 second cousins to the three hypothetical offspring. To go back again for third cousins, we can multiply by three: 108. 4th cousins: 324. 5th cousins: 972. 6th cousins: 2916. 7th cousins: 8748. From there it escalates into higher numbers. Keep in mind, this is while presuming that every couple in this hypothetical bloodline has three offspring, and that they do not interbreed (which elite families have been known to do.)

Your arithmetic is faulty. If 3 is the average number of kids (it could be argued that in an expanding society like America, the number of kids surviving to produce kids themselves may be higher), each of my grandparents has 9 grandchildren, but you have to deduct three (that is me and my two brothsisters). So I have 6 times two (two grandparent families involved) equals twelve cousins (I actually have twenty-five, by the way). One generation before that, each of my great-grandparents has 27 great-grandchildren, again deduct three, equals 24. 24 times 4 makes 96 cousins (I have never calculated my own total, but it must be close to 300). Granted, we should logically deduct from the 96 the 12 first cousins we found earlier, but this still leaves us 84, which is more double than the 36 you "found" and which explains why many people do not know their second cousins. Next generation: (81-3)*8=624, but we got to deduct 96 (84 second cousins, 12 first cousins). Leaves 528 , five times what you found. With fifth cousins you get into the twenty thousand range. If you do not trust my math, have a look at the end conclusion of one of the major sources uesd by the article: "With ancestry like the Presidents Bush in New England, the mid-Atlantic states, and the South, Senator Obama is certainly related to millions of contemporary Americans – perhaps even a significant percentage of the population." ([5]). In fact, one of the most credible sources used in the article is actually saying it is "not such a big deal"!--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 12:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To find out that within this family, at such close quarters as to be 5th cousins, include many of the most powerful and famous celebrities of our time, is rather remarkable. Also included in these blood connections are Canadian celebrities Celine Deon and Alanis Morissette, and deceased British royal Princess Diana. Bear in mind, it not only matters for how these figures are related to Obama, but how they are all genetically interrelated. What this poses is not necessary smoke for conspiracy suspicions or simply high society politics, but the question of genetic superiority as well. I don't think that anyone is interested in pointing this subject in any of these directions per say; simply to show the facts which have been proven and publically accepted. Not every person here might share an interest in this particular subject, but so is this true of virtually any subject. My argument is that the bloodline connections are by themselves remarkable, and of great interest to any number of people researching this or related fields of study (pardon the pun.) Neurolanis (talk) 21:22, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, everyone has such links. Every single man, woman, and child on the planet can be traced by blood relation to someone important, and through them to every other important person that person is linked to. Sure, Obama might be related to Brad Pit. But for every Obama who is, there are thousands of Joe Schmo nobodies who are, too. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that I am related just as closely to as many famous people as Barack Obama is. There are certainly a few exceptions where close relatives are all famous, like the Osmonds, the Baldwins (lord knows we have too many Baldwins), etc., but those tend to be more along the lines of family trades being passed down from generation to generation). --GoodDamon 22:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's an exaggeration. We all connect far enough back, yes. Many of us have 10th cousins who are significant, yes. But this issue shows many, many persons of significance who are all interrelated beneath that degree. Some may be connected at an insignificant distance, but many are 5th or 7th cousins. That's significant. Neurolanis (talk) 23:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But it isn't an exaggeration. Any two people with old New England ancestry have (by my experience) about a 1 in 3 chance of being related. That means any one person is going to be related to about 1/3 of the people of notoriety with such ancestry. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone with New England ancestry who isn't related to famous people. With French-Canadian ancestry, the chances are even higher (the entire population descends from a small number of founders). The other day, just to see, I took a perfectly average person whose pedigree I happened to have access to and they were related to the Bushs, Palin and Biden rather closely (closer than Bush/Obama), and related to Obama more distantly, with no McCain link at all. They also link to various people in Hollywood, etc. They are also indigent, of below average intelligence, and completely unmotivated. There is no genetic relevance here. Just sociology and curiosity and Kevin Bacon. You can find these things for anyone whose pedigree has been traced far enough back, and it has no significance whatsoever. It is coincidence. It tells you something about American society. It tells you nothing whatsoever about Obama that is worth knowing. Agricolae (talk) 01:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an (allegedly historically accurate) novel. (For example see here.) Just a short list. Just tips me hat but then 〜on thoght bows deeply 00:02, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That only demonstrates the importance of professional genealogy. Neurolanis (talk) 00:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Roots covers one individual's direct ancestry, through one parent. This doesn't even compare. --GoodDamon 00:40, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be very interested to see (on my talk page, say) proper documentation for a familial link between Diana Spencer and Barack Obama. But while I may have a hobbyist interest in such links, both 'notable' and 'distant cousin' in this article's scope are so general as to make it indiscriminate. The lack of proper sourcing for its claims merely compounds the problem. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:37, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Totally delete. Eleventh cousin? Most of us are probably more closely related to Darwin. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 22:21, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, salt, and jump up and down upon. Spurious listcruft. Don't Merge, either; too trivial for Family of Barack Obama. PhGustaf (talk) 00:04, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete As I said before, one of the best sources for the article is actually saying that it is not such a big deal: Obama is related to millions of contemporary Americans, and if you include 11th cousins this will be a never ending list. Totally unencyclopaedic. Yes, Wikipedia mentions that T Roosevelt and FD Roosevelt are fifth cousins (note the odds for 5th cousins above), but that is because they happen to share the same un-English family name, and whether they are related or not is a question that is often debated in the general public. I do not really know how much of this Cousins of Obama article belongs in the Family of Obama article - if one particular relationship is discussed (rather than just plain listed) in an article in a serious newspaper, then it would be OK, I guess, reputable and all that. Of course, Obama and Truman seem to be a relatively close cousins (we are talking +- 10,000 possible contemporary relatives there, versus hundreds of thousands for LB Johnson and millions for the Bush family). It is not clear from the sources in the articlehow close Madison and Cheney are, but we know Obama himself once mentioned his common ancestry with Cheney. So, contrary to what PhGustaf asserted, I suppose the Truman connection is OK for the Family of Barack Obama article, with Cheney doubtful.--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 13:00, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Academic commentators that argue the various lines of the above discussion could certainly have their beliefs mentioned in the article. (As it is, it will be interesting to see if the administrator who closes is brave enough to follow Wikipedia's guidelines or else bows to what's mostly an issue of predominant tastes, since this page is a classic example of Wikipedia:IDONTLIKEIT#I don't like it versus Wikipedia's general notability guideline.) Just tips me hat but then 〜on thoght bows deeply 02:41, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  Er, no, those who have voiced an opinion to delete have cited policy such as WP:IINFO, WP:LC, and so on. Mainstream media's mention of Obama and cousins satisfies, at best, the requirements of reliable sourcing, if it were to remain an article. It does not meet notability concerns in the slightest. Tarc (talk) 13:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• • Comment about merging - As I mentioned above, I like lists and think that appropriately-defined lists belong in Wikipedia. I can't wrap my mind around a way to establish criteria for this list that wouldn't permit it to be a list of every notable person ever. That's not to say that there isn't some interest in the subject of distant relations to this particular individual, and that relations to other notable individuals might not gain such notability in the future; I just don't know how to realistically limit a list that any hardworking genealogist could expand ad infinitum, which is what I think the arguments about indiscriminate information are getting at. The specific distant relations mentioned, and the debate about whether or not anyone should care, are notable enough to be included in the Family of Barack Obama article without a doubt. --otherlleft (talk) 13:13, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well said. So I guess I change my keep !vote above (when my signature was shorter) to merge, per Otherlleft. Just tips me hat but then 〜on thoght bows deeply 03:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.