In a new report by the AP, the New England Historic Genealogical Society has found a link between Senator Barack Obama and actor Brad Pitt, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pitt’s girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.

According to the organization, Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by a man named Edwin Hickman, who died in Virgina in 1769. Clinton and Jolie are also ninth cousins, twice removed, who are both related to a Jean Cusson who died in St. Sulpice, Quebec, in 1718. Spokesman for the Obama campaign, Ben LaBolt, declined to comment on the senator’s ancestry.

Clinton, who is of French Canadian descent on her mother’s side, is also a distant cousin of Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morrissette, according to the report. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins.

Genealogist Christopher Child says that while many candidates spend time pointing out the differences between them, their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think. “It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn’t necessarily expect,” Child says.

Child says Obama is also distantly linked to Winston Churchill, Civil War General Robert E. Lee, and–(drum roll please)–Vice President Dick Cheney.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society was founded in 1845, and is the largest and oldest non profit genealogical organization in the country.

Starring on a show titled Gossip Girl appears to have given cast members Blake Lively and Chace Crawford a sense of humor when it comes to rumors about their respective love lives.

When asked who they were dating in their off-screen lives, the pair of kidders had some fun with reporters at a press conference over the weekend. “I’m having Brad Pitt’s baby,” joked 20-year-old Blake.

Meanwhile, co-star Chace, who has been seeing singer Carrie Underwood since the fall, risked starting a whole different kind of rumor when he answered, “I’m dating a gay, Jewish monkey.”

We doubt that Angelina Jolie, who actually is pregnant with Brad’s child, has anything to worry about from the blonde actress.

Calls to the monkey’s rep about Chace’s comment have not yet been returned.

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Just like Merlin the wizard, who “youthened” rather than get older, Brad Pitt plans to age backwards.

As Benjamin Button, in David Fincher’s upcoming movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Pitt portrays someone suffering a rare reverse-aging condition – which costar Tilda Swinton says is amazing to behold.

“The programs they developed for that are just going to blow everything out of the water,” the Michael Clayton Oscar-winner, 47, gushed to MTV News about the technology employed to speed up – and turn back – the clock on Pitt. “I think it’s going to be extraordinary.”

Based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald story, Pitt plays Button through nearly 80 years of his life. “There are about eight sections, and I’m one of them. I’m his first love in the ’30s in Russia,” Swinton said. “What’s fascinating is we were all in these little films and they’ll all be put together [like an anthology].”

Cate Blanchett also stars in the flick, due in December.

In Touch Weekly is claiming that Angelina Jolie is pregnant with twins. Sources say that Angelina found out the news last week during a visit to her OB-GYN:

“They’ll be having a boy and a girl. Because she took fertility treatments to help her ovulate, her babies are fraternal. They’re ecstatic. She can’t wait.”

Angelina, 32, has told a pal that carrying twins this time has been difficult. She’s not only “bloated,” she’s suffering from indigestion caused by indulging in cravings for pizza, fries and cheese-and-pickle sandwiches. “She’s also out of breath a lot,” the insider reveals, “but she loves every second of it.”

Splash

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt set up a temporary home in Namibia in 2006 in anticipation of the birth of Shiloh, 21 months – and have made an offer on an 850-year-old stone house in Eygalieres, in the country’s Provence region, a real estate source tells Us Weekly.Pitt and Jolie – who has taken her baby bump everywhere from Texas to Baghdad – originally looked at the $20 million, fully renovated structure (official name: Mas de la Chapelle St. Sixte) last year, the source tells Us, but lost interest when they learned Pitt, 44, would not be given consent to build a motorbike circuit on the five-acre garden.

“As soon as they found out it was now possible, they jumped at the chance,” the source tells Us.

The couple may be eyeing the home as a place to settle after Jolie – whose mother was of French Canadian descent – gives birth to her next baby (she is due in early summer).

Jolie, 32, has had “long conversations” with the American Hospital of Paris about delivering there, a second source tells Us.

“Angelina knows all about our reputation,” says the hospital source. “She is certain she’d be happy giving birth here.”

Jolie has been spending time in Austin, Texas while Pitt films Tree of Life nearby.

US

Sheryl Crow has exploded the myth that Brad Pitt dumped then-wife Jennifer Aniston to romance Angelina Jolie, insisting her pal ditched the movie hunk – and not the other way around.

Despite the widely held belief the pair’s marriage ended in 2005 – after Pitt left Aniston – Crow insists she and Aniston bonded after the former Friends star dumped Pitt and she split from her fiance, cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Crow insists, “For both of us, the perceived idea is that, in our big relationships, we both got dumped. Believe me, this is not true. Neither one of us has ever gotten dumped. No one ever knows what goes on in relationships. Unfortunately, for some people like Jennifer and me, so much is written about things that you don’t say, and so many emotions are attributed to you that you haven’t had.”

Friends have backed up Crow’s claim – one pal telling the National Enquirer, “Once Jen saw the writing on the wall, she dumped Brad. “She took a cold, hard look at her marriage and realized it was irretrievably broken. She and Brad had vastly different personal agendas and feelings about love, career and having a family.”

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