New York – Adding a new twist to the already fraught, if not frequently bizarre, drama surrounding the contest, an Israeli genealogy startup company on Monday claimed to have evidence that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are related.
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MyHeritage.com, a family history network created by Gilad Japhet in 2003 – which has since expanded to support 42 languages and some 80 million users internationally – found the duo is 18 generations removed from a scandalous royal British affair.
Aaron Godfrey, vice president of marketing for the website, said that research performed by MyHeritage.com determined that Clinton and Trump are descendants from an adulterous tryst between John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, and his mistress, Katherine Swynsord.
The two eventually married.
According to Godfrey, the study was initially commissioned by a US television station that sought to determine if the candidates were somehow related.
“It was as simple as plugging in their names, and we saw that indeed there was a connection,” he said on Monday of the presidential contenders. “And that connection takes them back to English royalty, so clearly there is some sort of leadership in their genes.”
Godfrey noted that anyone can utilize the website’s algorithm-based data base to discover an unusual, or unexpected, branch of any given family tree.
“We have the tools for anybody to discover their family history and determine if they descended from royalty, or to find out more about their ancestors,” he said.
In the meantime, Godfrey said he hopes that the knowledge of human beings’ far-reaching interconnectedness will engender greater tolerance.
“To a certain extent, we’re all related,” he said. “And as we say around here, if people appreciate and internalize that, hopefully everyone will be a little nicer to each other.”