Which First Lady was a distant relative of President Franklin Pierce?

Barbara Bush, born Barbara Pierce, was the wife of President George H. W. Bush and the mother of President George W. Bush. Her Pierce family lineage traces back to the same colonial New England ancestors as President Franklin Pierce, making the two distant cousins. The shared surname is not merely a coincidence—both descended from the same Pierce family that settled in New England generations earlier. Franklin Pierce served as the 14th president from 1853 to 1857 and remains the only U.S. president ever elected from New Hampshire.