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- SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)
- What do Elvis Presley and former President Jimmy Carter have in common?
Genealogists say the answer is a 17th-century German ancestor who might
make them sixth cousins once removed.
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- In honor of the King's 65th birthday -- he would reach
retirement age Saturday if still alive -- a San Francisco genealogical
Web site Friday reprinted little-known research claiming that Presley and
the 39th president of the United States are part of the same family tree
-- although Carter is best known for a toothy grin rather than a swinging
pelvis.
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- The publishers of RootsWeb Review (<http://rootsweb.comhttp://rootsweb.com)
said the findings were first published in a scholarly work, ''More Palantine
Families,'' in 1991 by Henry Z. Jones, a researcher specializing in Palantine
(German) genealogy.
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- According to Jones, the immigrant ancestor of Presley's
paternal line was Valentine Preslar, born in Germany around 1669, who immigrated
to New York with his wife, Anna Christina Framse, in 1709. Among their
three sons and two daughters was Andreas Preslar, who was born in Germany
in 1701 and died in Anson County, North Carolina in 1759, Jones found.
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- The same research shows that Carter also descends from
Valentine Preslar (the name sometimes is spelled Presslar, Presler, or
Bressler) and Anna Christiana Framse, through their son Andreas and his
wife Anne (Antje) Wells.
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- In another book titled ``Notable Kin, Volume Two,'' genealogist
Gary Boyd Roberts concludes that Presley is probably a sixth cousin once
removed from Carter.
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- Representatives for Carter, 75, were not immediately
available for comment.
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- An article in Roberts' book also suggested that Presley
might be a distant relative of North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse
Helms but RootsWeb Review said that was discounted by later research.
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- RootsWeb also said, ``If you find names like Preslar,
Presslar, Presler or Bressler on your family tree, you might be related
to a president and a king too.''
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- Presley died in 1977 at age 42.
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