Brad Pitt is related to US presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The ‘Fight Club’ actor - whose attempt to help Senator Obama’s election campaign was reportedly refused by the Democrat - is a distant cousin of Obama, claim researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

According to the society, Pitt and Obama are actually ninth cousins, linked by a man called Edwin Hickman who died in 1769 in Virginia.

It has also been revealed Pitt’s long-term partner Angelina Jolie is related to Obama’s rival for the Democratic candidacy Hillary Clinton.

Jolie - who has three adopted children and a biological daughter with Pitt - is ninth cousins with Senator Clinton, through Jean Cusson, who died in Quebec, Canada, in 1718.

Genealogist Christopher Child said: “It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn’t necessarily expect.”

The study found Obama is also related to British World War II Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US Vice President Dick Cheney, while Clinton has links to Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette.

News cameras have captured Brad Pitt building homes in New Orleans, and now federal tax filings for the Jolie Pitt Foundation have documented the good works that Brad and Angelina Jolie are doing behind the scenes.All told, they gave more than $8 million in donations in 2006, with Pitt putting in $4,402,317, and Jolie donating $4,123,613, the Huffington Post reports, citing newly released federal tax filings. (These latest figures don’t include 2007 - in which, among other charitable efforts, Brad’s Make It Right Foundation raised $5 million.)

In terms of dispensing their funds, according to records for 2006, the foundation handed out $2,367,935, including $1 million to both Doctors Without Borders (International Division) and to the Global AIDS Alliance.

Additional gifts included $137,935 to the Namibia Red Cross Action Program (their daughter Shiloh was born in the African country); $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation (the late journalist’s widow, Marianne Pearl, was played by Jolie in A Mighty Heart); $100,000 to Global Green U.S.A. and to the Epidermolysis Bulloma Medical Research Foundation.

In addition, $20,000 went to an art park in Los Angeles, as did separate $5,000 donations to two orphanages that Jolie had visited.