If you've been visiting Ocracoke for long (or if you live here), you've certainly noticed the names that you hear often: Garrish, Gaskill, Austin, Ballance, Gaskins, and others. But the one which stands out as having the most people who carry it, is O'Neal. (The reason, as I understand it, is that one O'Neal family had 11 children - all boys. That's a bunch of guys to carry on the name by having families of their own, who have families of their own, who...well, you get the idea.)
Tonight, I went to the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of Ed and Stella O'Neal, and found myself in a room full of many, many O'Neals (and several other names, too), most of whom were related to each other. When I commented to William Nathan, who was sitting just down from me at the table as we ate dinner, that I needed someone to explain to me how all these people were connected to each other (who was related to whom), he quipped, "Oh, I don't even know how all of them are related. Just assume everyone in here is related, and you'll be pretty close!"
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