Yesterday, I attended a 90th birthday party for my husband’s great-grandmother’s brother’s wife. It is okay if you need to read the first sentence again. I did. For the most part, the relationships got even more complicated from there.
It was a fun morning with descendants of Grandma Long (Wendla Batmastar Long). There are some complex relationships because some families had children late, some early, and some had children in second marriages. Grandma Long had 4 surviving children that were born between 1907-1913.
The grandchildren of Grandma Long were born across a 24 year period (1927-1951). My husband’s line comes from the first grandchild born. This means that my husband’s father was born and raised within a few years of his mother’s cousin (the last grandchild born). My husband and I are the same age as my father-in-law’s second cousins. We jokingly refer to the “extra generation” that was added to the line.
When we get together with this side of the family, I like to hang out with cousin Judy. Although Judy is 9 years older then myself, we have some common interests (genealogy) and small kids. I came home yesterday and powered up my genealogy software to figure out just how are children are related. Judy is another second cousin of my father-in-law. Her parents waited to have children a little older so age wise she is smack in the middle of generations. Our children are 3rd cousins 1x removed. They sure had fun playing together.
There was one contingent of the family that was missing yesterday. They add even more fun to the generation layers in my husband’s family. They are almost the same age as their aunt (5-8 years apart).
It was a great morning visiting with everyone. There was lots of talk about who each person belonged to and how we all fit into the puzzle. It was fun for me to have my husband’s family interested in family history for the day.
