11. Ten Generation Cousins?

You and Carol stopped by Kim, and Paul's this afternoon to loan Owen and Brennan your virtual reality game during Winter. Oculus I (Oculus II just came out). Paul is buying Carol's new iPhone 11 (mint green) (last year's model), now cheaper. They didn't have your black iPhone 11 also with 128 memory, so Paul's looking around. Walmart had a sale with Verizon, one hundred off. You each presently have an iPhone 6. Paul is going to sell your old phones on eBay. Kim and Paul are getting you both the new noise-canceling Air Pod Pros for Christmas, so you don't have to listen to the cars and trucks while sleeping. You still love your larger Bose noise-canceling headphones. - Ms. Havisham

1910. I wouldn't have thought the above had a spiritual effect on heartansoulanmind.  

These are presents without necessity, but welcome anyway. You and Carol give each other a new iPhone 11; you hardly ever give each other Christmas gifts. - Ms. H.

2159. Indeed. I cannot remember such a Christmas, other than an exchange of cards with Carol receiving a hundred dollars or a debit card for Barnes and Noble, and me receiving a hundred-dollar bill in the Christmas card to save or spend as I like (without guilt). We have been doing this exchange since 1972 when we returned home from Brazil. Some years we didn't even do that because we bought a new appliance or chair or television earlier in the year and that became our Christmas present to one another. It must be in our mutually mixed Scottish ancestry. 2206. 

In the twenty-first century, Carol's Uncle, Dr. John Hammond, took an Oxford University DNA test, as did yourself. The tests showed that you both may have shared a grandfather around the thirteenth century. During the Protestant revolution, one of the Hammond moved to present-day Germany for the new religion. In any case, there was a plausible connection with the Ohrendorf family in the same area of the country. Both the Hammond and the Orndorff family DNA's go back to West Scotland five thousand years ago even without the later possible connection. Somewhere along the line, an Orndorff had some of the male Hammond bloodlines. That's the story that got you interested in writing Grandma's Stories in the first place. – Ms. H. 

2222. This is true. I wondered about the unusual concept that Carol and I might be related way back, and I thought of all the people in the world who might indeed have been related in such a way and never know it. 

This is such a point to end today's blog. How many people are related in any five or ten generations, let's say cousin-wise? – Ms. Havisham

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