Is Stephen Harper related to Count Dracula?

Recently the press have been having some fun with celebrity genealogy. US vice-President Cheney is related to presidential candidate Barack Obama according to the Associated Press. An Obama spokesman quipped that every family has its black sheep. CBS news reported that Obama is also President Bush's 11th cousin, and the ninth cousin of actor Brad Pitt.

The same CBS report revealed that Bush is also seventh cousin, five times removed of Abraham Lincoln; 11th cousin, twice removed of Princess Diana; and ninth cousin, three times removed to Marilyn Monroe.

Even with the loonie leaving the US buck in the dust, can Prime Minister Stephen Joseph Harper possibly hold his own in that social league?

Now, in an Anglo-Celtic Connections exclusive, I can reveal that the same resource used for Obama and Bush, ancestry.com, shows Harper has similarly notable relatives. The link is through his great-great grandfather Bedford Harper's mother, Susan Crane.

In Canada Harper is related to Prime Ministers Robert L Borden and Richard B Bennett, all three Conservatives.

In the USA Harper is related to President Millard Fillmore, who served for the Whig party, forerunner of the Republicans; and Republicans James Garfield and Gerald Ford.

Is this right leaning tendency coincidence or genetic? A genetic basis may not be so far fetched an idea. If homosexuality can be genetic, as some believe, why not conservatism?

If Harper took a Y-DNA test maybe he'd find he shares the profile associated with descendants of Genghis Khan. Or perhaps there's a connection though his Harper line which goes back to the county of Yorkshire in England. He may descend from marauding Viking raiders.

Let this be a warning to kids out trick or treating in the vicinity of 24 Sussex Drive, a relative of Count Dracula may be in the vicinity!