Sixth degree related to me?

With the chatter "again" about who is related to whom I must make a confession. I haven't the FOGGIEST idea who I am related to in Clatsop County, really, especially depending on how you count a relation. For that matter, even if you are only counting "blood" relations.

I remember in grade school coming home and telling my mother that a little girl named Anna Helmerson told me that we were cousins. My mother confirmed we were. On my father's side, through his first cousin's, my second cousin, marriage. Huh? How come I've never seen her before? Where's eight years' worth of Christmas and birthday gifts? Another kid told me we were cousins and his mom, who worked in the school cafeteria confirmed it! Who were these people? And where were all the missing gifts?

We had five kids in our family, I think we were one of the first families tossed off everyone's lists back in the sixties. My mother's sister, Dixie, had four kids (Owens) and those were the only cousins I really knew about. My dad's sister, Susan, had two kids that were six and eight years older than me (Orrs) and too old to play with so didn't quite count. The closest other cousins that lived in town (so I thought) were the Justin twins and they were older than the Orrs so they really didn't enter into my life until I was much older, and one other Bartoldus who was even older than them. Funny, I have older children than them all, and I have grandchildren first, too. Ummm. They got college educations first and had children in their thirties and I had children in my twenties and then completed my college education.

Anyhow, our other first cousins were out of towners (Stassens which were Seaside but moved to Hood River, Castles in Indiana, Woods lived in Dominican Republic came back to Astoria went back to DR but do now live back here, mostly) and second cousins by the scores. My mom's other siblings had children that we saw on occasion but they weren't locals so it wasn't like they started showing up out of the woodwork unexpectedly like those sneaky Bartoldus relatives. Plus, mom's family were Coasties. They moved here in the late forties/early fifties. They weren't locals.

Dad's family came in the 1860s, but they were Prussians. Not a drop of Scandinavian. Then I found out there were drops of Irish. And drops of English. And then drops of other a whole lot of other stuff!!! Cousins I had never heard of kept informing me, at school, that we were related! Grandma's had last names before they married grandpas, apparently, and no one had told me their stories! We were related to Faieres and Scruggs and Hardies and Helmersons and Heckards and Canarises but wait Mom's family were Coasties and not from around here! Oh, her mom's family were actually from Westport, and had moved over to Cathlamet and down to Long Beach and Ilwaco and over to Astoria and back up to Aberdeen and met up with the Woods.

And then in Astoria the Woods had met with the Owens who had met up with just about everyone in Astoria at one time or another and more than half of the time didn't marry them, and the Canarises weren't so keen on marraiges either, and that wasn't just recently but as early as the early 1900s!!! With the Owens came the Van Horns and a Bradley or two and so many more why start when you can't stop?

In high school one day my math lab partner and I were bored doing tic tac toe games, and we sure as heck didn't understand the algebra Mr. Scott had up on the board, so we were telling where our favorite places to camp were. I was telling about a spot which is now about fifty feet from where I presently live. I told him, "You go across the metal bridge and past the Bogh's house and then past the next house which is where," and just as I was going to say, "my grandma Mel lives," he says, "My uncle Cecil lives!" We both just looked at each other. "I am related to Larsons?" I questioned. "Mom never said we were related to Bartolduses" said Jim. I still have no idea how many came in on the Moberg deal.

So, who are you? Are you sure we aren't related? Where do you hail from? Are you a Satterwhite or a Rainey? Are you a Moberg, Reick or a Tenny? A Rummell or a LaFerrier, Tonnis, Haines, Detricks, or Miller? A Morrell, a Padgett, a Westerholme, or Ornellas? A Smith? A Jones? Forget about it, we are related. We told our children, do not date here. Do not think about a spouse if they have a relation here. Really, you should have a blood test done if they have a grandparent here or a great-aunt, we are related. Somehow, somewhere, sometime, some place, someone did it with someone else and we are related. Thank the good Lord the law only extends to first cousins or there would be a lot of people in big trouble in this county. And when you think about all the "free love" of the seventies (yeah, we were a decade behind around here) there probably is still a lot of people that could be in trouble!!!




Oh, calm down, fog bounders, I'm jist joshing you! Hardly any of us are related .... very much.