A New Cousin

Every few years another new cousin turns up -- this is Laura Horn Galdamez, fifty years old, living in Coronado CA. She is The Great Plotnik's 3rd Cousin, according to the family tree software, though the connections to third cousinhood can be hard to calculate. Thank goodness for software.

Laura found Cousin John in Illinois and he forwarded her question about the family to Plotnik in Saint Plotniko and after a little research it has been discovered that Laura's great grandfather Michel, a baker, was the younger brother of Plotnik's great grandfather, Morris, a shoemaker, both living in the little town called Wloclawek, Poland, that Plot, Duck and The Great BZWZ visited in 2000.

So the men in the Plotnik family go like this: Pinchas, a shoemaker, to Morris, a shoemaker, to Max, a salesman, to Sherman, a salesman, to Plotnik, a musician, to The Great PunkyDunky, a media director, to Brooklyn BellyBone, who is currently holding down the solitary position in the Seventh Generation.

Seven generations of Plotnik women to get to BellyBone would be: Bella to Bessie to Sophia to Rose to Barbara to Staci to Isabella.

BZWZ will have something to say about this order but not yet.

Seven generations of birthplaces: Wloclawek, Wloclawek, Wloclawek, Chicago, Chicago, Los Angeles and Los Angeles.

Many in Plotnik's family find this stuff to be no more than moderately amusing, but Plotnik feels a lot more connected thinking about all these people, and the lives they lived, and the lives we live, and the lives our kids and grandkids live and all the question marks after that.

And before that. All we can know is ourselves and a few generations in either direction. There are so many unanswered questions, but one new third cousin.