I found something very interesting today while filling in the blanks on my tree: my father and his adoptive father are third cousins once removed (I think I have that right!). Wow!
My father’s birth family:
Roger Dale Ray (Robert Jewell Vincent, my father)
Elbert Tracey “Shorty” Vincent (his father)
Lucy Johnson Breedlove (his grandmother)
Margaret Stringer (his great-grandmother)
Gray Stringer (his 2nd great-grandmother)
Lawrence Stringer and Sallie Pitt (his 3rd great-grandparents)
My father’s adoptive family:
Roger Dale Ray (Robert Jewell Vincent, my father)
Omer Ellis Haynes "Buster" Ray (his adoptive father)
John Wilson Ray (his adoptive grandfather)
Margaret Miller (his adoptive great-grandmother)
Anzeline Stringer (his adoptive 2nd great-grandmother)
Lawrence Stringer and Sallie Pitt (his 3rd great-grandparents)
This also makes Anzeline Stringer my father’s 2nd great-grand aunt.
And it makes my father his own 4th cousin through adoption.
It gave me the giggles. He was adopted into his own family!