Reporter explains relationship to 'distant cousin' Obama

Earlier we posted on Richard Dunham, White House reporter for the Houston Chronicle, who noted in a White House pool report that it was his last day on the job Tuesday and he how used the occasion to bid farewell to the national media and his "distant cousin"President Obama "Godspeed."

It was an unusual note to an otherwise normal pool report, which detailed Obama's meeting that morning with congressional leaders. Dunham got back to TheBlaze a few hours later to explain his relationship to Obama.

"I found out I was related to then-Sen. Obama when the political editor of the Houston Chronicle sent me Obama’s family tree and I compared it to mine and found the match in Jonathan Dunham (Singletary, alias Dunham)," he wrote to us in an email. "I think it was in 2008. I knew we might have been related from the first time I hosted him as a speaker at the National Press Club in 2005, when he told me his mother was a Dunham (first name Ann) and said I should find out if we were related. (It took three years.)"

Dunham added that he doesn't know Obama personally "outside of the political sphere."

"Though I met him several times before he ran for president," he added.

So, how "distant" is Obama related to Dunham? "He’s a 10th or 11th cousin, for what it’s worth" he told us.