Well, Christ on a Cracker: Cousin Genie with the light brown hair, and cousin to "THAT Woman!"

Folks, I am here to tell you that in 35 years of genealogy I have never encountered a truly infamous and famous person, in one.  Cookie is so over the moon at the moment.  I have had a true "well shut the front door" moment. 

As I have said before, Cookie knows where all the bodies are buried, and which closets contain which skeletons. But today I made two rather astounding discoveries and I am here to share them. 

First off, all, save one or two, of my dearly departed Mother's genealogy lines pretty much are concentrated in Pennsylvania or Maryland prior to 1800.  This is a documented fact.   

So two weeks ago, BS (before surgery) I sat down with the next door neighbor for a glass of wine and a get to know you chat.  Both of them are very long in Maryland's better known names, so when I said I was a descendent of the Dorsey family, she said that there was a very good reason to assume that we're distant cousins.  And in fact we are! Ninth cousins once removed to be exact.

Now think about it.  We know no one in Baltimore, we move here from Ohio, buy a house in hurry and end up living next do to someone that I share, not a shirttail relationship (like a second consin to the man that her great great aunt married once because a shotgun was pointed at both of them by her pa) a blood relation with.  Next door!

But wait, there is more.

Cousin Bessie, on the right. 

As I discovered for myself, both she and I are also distant cousins of one of the most notorious women of the 20th Century - A woman so notorious that that she was better know as THAT Woman, for years: Balmore's own Bessie Warfield!

Seriously, Genie, Wallis and I, we all go back to the same couple.

I would ask how did this happen, and the answer is easy. Get seven generations of people descended from the same man and woman to start having coitus with reckless abandon, add in some third cousins getting married, a few wars,  sooner or later you are bound to be a cousin of someone who did something so socially scandalous that are buried at Frogmore.

If my mother were still alive (it will be four years this November) she would have an absolute kniption fit.  "Did you simply ask an Eight Ball and go with that answer?  It's real?  You can't tell anyone - we'll be outcasts at WalMart.  Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to end it all and jump out of the basement window in shame..."

Cousin Bessie, excuse me, I mean Wallis,  married this guy named
David, who had just gone on unemployment the day before.  Figures. 

Now, I have to say that I am related to Bessie Wallis a bit closer than the next door neighbor, as I am related to both of her father's mother and father.  Well HELLO cousin Bessie and Howdy Cousin David!

So if you need me, I will be right here, bursting with all sorts of wonder, and gas, because after that surgery, I am very gassy.

Cookie