WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama met with the leader of the Mormon church on Monday in the Oval Office, thanking the religion's president for a thorough history of the first family.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints President Thomas S. Monson presented Obama with details of his family's genealogy during their first face-to-face meeting. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who is Mormon, helped arrange the meeting and joined it.
"I'm grateful for the genealogical records that they brought with them and am looking forward to reading through the materials with my daughters," Obama said in a statement after the meeting. "It's something our family will treasure for years to come."
Mormon leaders traditionally meet with new presidents and share with them records from the Utah-based church's extensive genealogical records.
The five leather-bound books detail Obama's family history for several generations. Parts of that history were already known, such as his ties to former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney. The two are eighth cousins.
Obama is a descendent of Mareen Duvall. The French Huguenot's son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650s from England.