I’ve been surprised several times to learn that a longtime friend or acquaintance is also a cousin (usually fairly distant, but no moreso than FDR & Eleanor), due usually to some 19th century ancestors who produced a new baby every third Wednesday. (The record in my family for the same parents is 17 children, though one fertile old man [my g-g-grandfather] had 24 children with 4 consecutive wives, which peoples up a tri-state area with cousins fairly quickly.)
Dopers who are so inclined- share some of your ancestral surnames. You don’t have to say how they’re connected and you can delete any you want to if you don’t want to reveal your identity. A few of my own (alphabetized) that I’m curious if anybody else is related to (most of my families came to America in the 18th century and settled on the southern Atlantic seaboard, though a few came from Ireland much later):
Caton*, Cotton, Darby, DeRamus, Golson, Milner, Rawlinson, Rumph, Trawick**
Does anybody have any of the same surnames among their direct ancestors? (If you don’t but would like to see if you have any shared surnames with other Dopers, feel free to post anyway)
*sometimes spelled Catton (even in the same family)
**sometimes spelled Traywick and Trawik; by some accounts the name was originally Trawisky and was a Polish Jewish family that emigrated to Ireland in the 18th century, though I don’t know the reliability of those claims
