Politics really does run in George Clooney’s blood. The politically active Oscar winner is distantly related to America’s 16th president Abraham Lincoln, according to Ancestry.com.
The men are connected through Lincoln’s maternal grandmother, Lucy Hanks, which means that the actor is Lincoln’s half-first cousin five times removed, the genealogy site claims.
Ancestry.com found the Lincoln-Clooney link while looking into the assassinated president’s lineage in celebration of Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film “Lincoln.”
“We noticed there were similarities between the names and places of Abraham Lincoln’s tree and George Clooney’s tree,” said Ancestry.com’s Michelle Ercanbrack to People. “They both have deep roots in Kentucky, so once we honed in on that we were able to find a connection between the two.”
“Maybe they’re not two men you’d originally put together, but we’ve found some interesting similarities,” Ercanbrack said. “They’re both human rights advocates. … Both are excellent writers. … And obviously both have the talent of being able to grow a really great beard.”
The handsome actor also has another famous relative in his family tree – his aunt was singer-actress Rosemary Clooney, who died in 2002.