Former US President George W Bush can trace his family all the way back to the West Country, according to new research.
The famously gaffe-prone ex-leader has ancestors from deepest 13th Century Somerset.
Local historian Monica Evans stumbled across the link as she delved into the history of Midsomer Norton, near Bath.
She found the paternal side of the Bush family tree included a woman called Cecilia De Vivonia who was born in 1257 and died in 1320.
Cecilia was from Midsomer Norton and became part of the 25th generation of ancestors of the President when she married John I (the first) De Beauchamp.
He was a landowner who held much of nearby Shepton Mallet.
Records show that Bush’s descendants then spread themselves over eight different counties of the UK.
Most remained firmly rooted in the West Country – in Somerset, Devon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire – but others spread further to Yorkshire.
The President’s immediate ancestors remained in England until the 17th Century when they left for America.
Jonathan Fairbanks and Grace Smith became some of the first emigrants to the New World when they moved to Massachusetts in 1668.
Bush himself was born in the neighbouring state of Connecticut nearly 300 years later in 1946.
Now aged 67, he was the 43rd US President and was in office for two terms between January 2001 and January 2009.
