Barack Obama says he is an agent of change, a fresh face to lead America, but there is one thing he won’t be boasting about on the campaign trail: that he is related to Dick Cheney.

Lynn Cheney, the US Vice-President’s wife, said she discovered the improbable connection between the African-American Democratic presidential candidate and her husband while researching her ancestry.

Mr Obama - charismatic anti-war son of a black Kenyan goatherd and white Kansan mother - and Mr Cheney - immensely powerful and very white Bush administration hawk - are eighth cousins, Mrs Cheney said.

The Vice-President’s wife said the two men shared an ancestor, a 17th century immigrant from France named Mareen Duvall.

According to Mrs Cheney, Mr Obama - Hillary Clinton’s leading rival for the Democratic nomination - is a descendant of Mr Duvall. The French Huguenot’s son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650s from England.

“This is such an amazing story,” Mrs Cheney said, “that one ancestor, a man that came to Maryland, could be responsible down the family line for lives that have taken such different and varied paths as Dick’s and Barack Obama’s.” Mr Obama’s spokesman Bill Burton quipped: “Obviously, Dick Cheney is the black sheep of the family.” Chances of an Obama-Cheney family reunion are slim.

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