The US presidential candidates may have star qualities and they also have stars in their families, according to a genealogical study linking Hillary Clinton to Angelina Jolie and Barack Obama to Brad Pitt.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) in Boston yesterday released a study in which it traced the family trees of all three presidential candidates to find they all had famous relatives, both dead and alive.

It found Illinois Senator Barack Obama, whose mother is from Kansas, can claim at least six US presidents as distant cousins, including George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush; Gerald Ford; Lyndon Johnson; Harry Truman; and James Madison.