My Kind-of-Cousin, Rachel

     I met Rachel in 9th grade and still see her on occasion today. Recently, Rachel and I got to talking about genealogy. She'd started a family tree a while ago, but had come to a bit of a standstill. She wasn't having much luck researching her mom, a Cuban immigrant. She had been having more luck on her father's tree though, and I offered to take a look at it.

     Rachel had started a tree on Ancestry.com so I reviewed it and asked her questions. After a bit of unsuccessful searches on ancestry, I did a Google search for James Kelley Butler, her Great-Grandfather. The very first result I found was for a tree on Rootsweb, for her Great-Uncle, James Kelley Butler Jr. The tree didn't have her family line, so I was about to move on to another search until I saw a familiar name: Ouzts. Rachel's great-uncle was married to Mary Gertrude Ouzts. Happily, I saw that this was the "Ouzts Family In America" tree, which I was already familiar with. I had submitted my information to this tree a few months ago and knew that the owner double-checked sources and didn't add "junk trees" to his. 

     Knowing that I could trust the information I'd found, I turned to my friend and said, "Rachel, I think we're related." It turns out that Rachel's Great-Aunt "Gertie" was the 4th cousin to my Great-Grandmother, Auline Witt. We're related by marriage, not blood, but Rachel quickly started to call me "cousin." It's strange to find out that someone you've known for so long is actually related to you. 

     Here's a chart of our relationship: