If you follow the news, you heard or read recently about the family relationships of our major candidates for the presidency of the United States.

The New England Historic Genealogy Society has discovered that Barak Obama has the genes of no less than six former U.S. presidents. Obama is locked in an increasingly nasty contest with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nod.

Poor Hillary doesn't have any former presidential genes, although entertainers Madonna, Celine Dion and Angelina Jolie are numbered among her cousins.

Republican nominee John McCain's only illustrative genes connect to his sixth cousin, first lady Laura Bush.

I haven't seen Obama's pedigree chart, but apparently six former presidents are his cousins, of one strip or another. He may not wish to claim the three Republican presidents: George Hebert Bush (Bush I); George Walker Bush (Bush II) or Gerald Ford.

Politically, anyway, one would assume Obama is more comfortable with his cousins Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman. Those are strong Democratic genes.

I don't know what to do with the other former president, James Madison. Nor do I know what Obama thinks of another cousin who was a very great leader, General Robert E. Lee. It would be understandable if he's a bit conflicted on that one.

As if six president-cousins don't provide enough leadership genes, Obama also shares some genes with Sir Winston Churchill, the World War II British prime minister whose genes never, give up. Never, never, never.

If we count genetics, Obama obviously is the vastly more experienced candidate. Regardless, Obama's is certainly an impressive pedigree -- for whatever that's worth.

But what's with this cousin "business?"

Who are our cousins, what kinds of cousins are there, and how many cousins do we have?

If those who take the Bible literally are correct, we're all cousins, having descended from the first two humans, Adam and Eve. But even if we descend from a number of different couplings many millennia ago, we all have more cousins than the sands of the seas, to use a biblical simile.

Here's how this cousin thing works.

Children of our parents' siblings, our aunts and uncles, if any, are our first cousins.

Children of our grandparents' siblings, our great-aunts and great-uncles, if any, are our second cousins.

Children of our great-grandparents' siblings are our third cousins.

And so, we see, the numerical designations are generational. The higher the number, the further back the connection is to what genealogists (and geneticists) call the "common ancestor."

Now, in addition to these, first, second and third relationships, there are two more types of cousins. The first involves "removed" cousins.

All first cousins are of the same generation. All second cousins are of the same generation, and so forth, as far as pedigrees can be chased. But "removed" cousins are of different generations.

For instance, Henley McKenzie, born in 1822, grandson of Isaac McKenzie, and I are first cousins three times removed. Isaac is our common ancestor. I descend from Isaac's daughter, Elizabeth; Henley from Isaac's daughter, Jemima.

And now you know how this cousin business works. If it confuses you as much as it does me, just consult a genealogy software program. Most have a protocol in them that allows you to put in any two names and it will report their relationship: aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.