Two degrees of separation

More confirmation of what I said in my last post! The other day I had a guest, here for the first time, who said she thought she knew my mother. Turns out they grew up in the same little town, and my grandmother used to babysit her! Her last name was the same as some distant relatives I remember visiting with my grandmother as a child. "Do you think we're related?" I asked. "Probably," she shrugged.

Switch to the paternal side of the family: last night another first-time guest arrived asking if I knew certain other Stramels. They turned out to be two of my first cousins, whom she'd known through mutual friends. Like I've been saying ever since I moved to Hays in 1997, the most degrees of separation possible here are two.