I know many people who have parents or spouses who are distant cousins because perhaps they have colonial American connections on both sides of the family tree or they are from a small village or share an ethnic origin where many of the family surnames repeat through the generations.

That’s most definitely not true for my family tree as my father’s side is Carpatho-Rusyn and my mother’s is colonial New England with a bit of Danish, Swedish and Dutch added to the mix.

However, I’ve commented in the past that, like my own parents, my husband and I don’t share any common ancestors either. He certainly doesn’t have any Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry, nor does he have any colonial New England, with the exception of a couple of families that either arrived in Pennsylvania or lived in Connecticut and New York before heading south and west to settle into new lives.

For the most part, his and my ancestors didn’t live anywhere near each other at the same time as his lines were heavily settled in the South before migrating westward.

While taking a new look at my hubby’s early lines, though, and his tangled Woodruff family in particular, I came across a surprising connection between our ancestors.

His John (the Younger) Woodruff married Hannah Newton, c1670. She was the daughter of Thomas Newton and Joan Smith of Long Island, New York. Hannah’s sister, Abigail, married Lodowick Opdyke (or Updike, as it came to be spelled), c1680s. The Opdykes were a Dutch New York family.

I recognized the Opdyke surname from my own family tree. Lodowick was the son of Gysbert Opdyke and Katherine Smith. My ancestress, Elizabeth, was the first born child of Gysbert and Katherine while Lodowick was the second child.

Elizabeth married George Wightman, c1664, and like a number of other early New Yorkers, headed slightly north to Rhode Island to live.

So, even though Dave and I don’t share any ancestors or have many connections to Long Island, our 8X great grandmothers – Hannah (Newton) Woodruff and Elizabeth (Opdyke) Wightman – would have known each other as extended family members.

That’s pretty neat and very unexpected given the very early and transitory ties we each have to Long Island.