So far the closest is 10th cousin, via the Batchelders of Massachusetts.
But we numerous times share grandmothers and grandfathers, before we diverge off again due to descent from a different sib.
Well, we’ve done it again, this time re Adm. Hawkins, naval architect, and one of the 3 commanders of the British Fleet against the Spanish Armada—. I saw Pinney and Hawkins come up in her tree, and sure enough, her 11th great grandmother is my 10th. We’re always about a generation apart in the relationship, though we’re only 10 years apart in our ages.
Fun!
That will happen in large families. Some of my cousins are older than some of my uncles, and some of my cousins are young enough to be my children.
Not shocking, really, my husband’s older brother is EXACTLY (to the DAY) the same age as my father. Hubby was 10 years older than me, and the youngest of 4 while I’m the oldest… Over several generations, even a few years difference in ages can make a big difference!
Hehe, had to see if the new avatar was working!
Heh. That is a Scottish Fold, Weeble, like my Seishi—except Seishi is a straight-ear. They’re wonderful, kooky kittehs…We’ve got Shu, our Wild Thang, half-Bengal, whose instincts to hunt [kibble] are truly impressive…a smallish cat who weighs, as I’ve described him, like a bowling ball with teeth. And Sei, who stretches to nearly three feet, twice Shu’s size, who is made of air and marshmallow, and who, if he’s trying to get down, always has some part of him inconveniently out of your hold: his joints are so long and loose you worry about him spraining something.
I acquired him, as many of you remember, as an adult, and he was a very, very shy kitty, very willing to please, but not at all assertive—especially with our little Bengal ruling the roost.
Now he is (finally!) learning the household routine at bedtime: watching these two hard-headed kittehs leap and run toward a summons and separate at the hallway door like circus performers, each toward his own room and own source of evening treats, just arrived suddenly: one evening ‘t was as usual, Shu rushing to my room to be sure he could steal anything Sei got, and Sei hiding under the living room table, unwilling to contest Shu’s piracy—and having to be hunted down…
And then, voila! they both seemed to come to an agreement, and instead of “Jane! Call your cat!” so I could track mine down, every night for the 2 years I’ve had him, and get him out from under the furniture, it was suddenly this marvelous high-speed bounding sort-out, each to their proper room.
Finally! And it only took 2 years, you say, for them to sort it out? A recent development, I take it?
When I get home, I am usually met in the driveway by Little Brother who is very pleased to see me, and I don’t think it’s exclusively cupboard love: when I say “Dinner!” or “Breakfast!”, everyone else heads to the bowls, but LB sometimes must be gently shooed out from underfoot so I don’t step on him. Zorro apparently has the keenest ears of all, or a well-developed meal timer; she will start carrying on about 5 minutes before I arrive.
I don’t know what clicked, but there was a revelation of some sort as to what we wanted, and that if they did it, the spice would flow…
They now believe they have us trained and we have finally understood what they want.
Yeah, she’s a former house-sitting client that I took on as foster while her owner recovered from a fall. Now the owner has had to move and couldn’t take her so after 8 months she’s MINE 🙂 She just showed up one day wandering, and nobody claimed her, so we’re not really sure what the whole story is! She’s definitely NOT the shy retiring type, thats her “make a lap or I’m gonna BITE” look. Its taken a while for her to acclimate, and she knows and remembers exactly what a squirt bottle means even though I haven’t had to use it for months…
The dinner bell however she does know!
I’ve got a half Siamese that can hear the sound of kibbles hitting a porcelain dish from two rooms away, over the sound of an Oreck air purifier that’s on the nightstand next to the bed he’s kipping under. Hearing. He haz it.
No connection to the good Admiral, but his wife is my 7th cousin, 14 times removed. And no Batchelders that I know of, but I’m fairly certain that we’re connected a bit closer than that as I think we have some Virginians in common from your earlier comments.
Katherine Gonson’s father Benjamin was Treasurer of the Royal Navy, which has to have let Sir John have a real good idea where the assets were tucked… 😉 A great advantage if you’re bent on overhauling the rigging and reinforcing the knees of every ship afloat!
One hopes he was also able to get proper refits, and that ‘diversion of assets’ didn’t affect the ships he was refitting. It was a well-known problem that unless you had an ‘in’ with the shipwrights, or were able to oversee every step of your outfitting, you would find that you got whatever was available, or from whatever supplier paid off the quartermasters! Inch thick oak planking was often shaved, nails or pegs which should have been every six inches were a foot or farther, and the brass and copper was adulterated and weakened. Frequently the issue wasn’t discovered until you were out at sea, in the teeth or a storm, or under fire.
Ooh! I have a Katherine Gonson in my tree! She married a Hawkins… but not Admiral John. Or at least, that’s what my notes have. That’s not a part of my tree that’s been verified.
Keep looking. She’s likely d. of Benjamin.