Former U.S. President Barack Obama and actor Brad Pitt are ninth cousins.
Social media users rediscovered and circulated a claim in 2023 that former U.S. President Barack Obama and A-list actor Brad Pitt are ninth cousins.
An Instagram user posted the tidbit in April 2023, stating: “In 2012, genealogists found out that former President Barack Obama and actor Brad Pitt are ninth cousins, related through Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769.”
(fact6t9/Instagram)
The claim gained traction on X on Dec. 25, 2023, when the statement, “Brad Pitt is related to Barack Obama. They are ninth cousins,” received nearly 46,000 views, as of this writing. Similar posts on X and Reddit followed in February and April 2024, respectively.
Obama and Pitt’s Familial Connection
Genealogists at the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) — a genealogical organization founded in 1845 — unearthed the connection between the two men in 2008, according to reports by numerous credible news outlets, such as Reuters, the BBC, NBC News and The Guardian, all of which cited researchers at NEHGS.
Additionally, Leland Meitzler, author of GenealogyBlog, published a post on Jan. 29, 2010, saying he received a news release from Tom Champoux, a marketing director at NEHGS (archived), which stated:
In 2008, NEHGS discovered that President Obama is related to seven U.S. Presidents, including George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S Truman, and James Madison, as well as actor Brad Pitt.
[Emphasis in bold ours]
Snopes reached out to Meitzler and Champoux, who did not immediately return a request for comment. We also reached out to NEHGS — which has since changed its name to American Ancestors — for access to the 2008 news release, which we were unable to find; however, they were also not immediately available for comment.
But according to NEHGS’s research, Pitt and Obama shared a common ancestor, Edwin Hickman, who lived in Virginia and died in 1769.
Genealogists identified Hickman as the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of the two men, making them ninth cousins.
Snopes reached out to Pitt and Obama’s respective teams, and although they did not immediately return a request for comment, a spokesperson for Pitt appeared unaware of this familial relation to the former president.
Elsewhere, the connection between Obama and Pitt was published on family tree website Geneastar (archived), and in April 2024, a Reddit user posted a flow chart illustrating the family tree linking the two men (archived):
In 2014, genealogy platform Ancestry.com also reported on their familial ties (archived), with the website providing the following information regarding their shared ancestry:
The president shares an 18th-century Virginia ancestor with the superstar actor-producer. Edwin Hickman, who died in 1769, connects Obama and Pitt as ninth cousins.
Hickman’s connection to Obama comes through his mother, Ann Dunham, who grew up in Kansas. Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya. Dunham and Obama Sr. met as university students in Hawaii, where the future president was born.
Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and raised in Missouri in a strict Baptist household.
Genealogical research attributed to NEHGS, and subsequent media coverage, confirmed former President Obama and Hollywood actor Pitt are indeed ninth cousins, sharing a common ancestor from the 18th century. Therefore, we have rated this claim as “True.”
Snopes previously reported on unusual genealogical finds, including President Joe Biden being listed as dead in 2018, and the false claim that Jeremy Allen White and Gene Wilder are blood relatives.