Sunday, February 25, 2007

Jan Betker Loses to Kelley Scott

 
My (distant*) cousin Jan Betker from Saskatchewan just lost the final of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts to last year's champion Kelly Scott of British Columbia, playing as Team Canada.

Too bad. Well done Jan and good luck next year.

Jan is a three time Canadian champion (1993, 1994, 1997), a three time World champion (1993, 1994, 1997) and an Olympic Gold Medal winner in 1998.

* Jan's grandfather was my grandmother's brother. Does this make her a second cousin or a third cousin?

7 comments:

  1. Why does she have a boy's name?

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  2. She's your second cousin. (Your parent and her parent were first cousins.)

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  3. And your children and her children (if any) are third cousins.

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  4. anonymous asks,

    Why does she have a boy's name?

    She doesn't. In English the name "Jan" is a nickname for "Janet" or a variant of "Janet." See (Jan). The former astronaut Jan Davis was not a man. The name is sometimes spelled "Jann" as in Jann Arden.

    In Northern Europe the name is a variant of "John" and it's a boy's name.

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  5. Since rosie redfield beat me to the punch, I'll have to toss in the additional point that the "removed" descriptor in cousin relationships denotes generational offsets. Your first cousin's children are your first cousins, once removed. Jan Betker's kids would be your second cousins, once removed.

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  6. And your children and her children (if any) are third cousins.

    Unless the two branches interconnect somehow, in which case you have to revert to "the Southern calculus."

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  7. I liked curling more before the introduction of the modern tools -- back when a broom was a broom.

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