In this episode, which is the first to have been recorded after the singularly wonderful and marvelously successful Marble House Meeting at the end of June, Taylor has a proper conversation with Kate McCabe, the retired educator, amateur historian, and self-described "Morristown Girl" who knows more about the family of James Colles than anyone who—unlike her—actually shares some of his DNA. McCabe talks about some of the prickly personalities that tried to fit in with the family. She calls Emily Johnston De Forest a "rockstar." She explains "the squabble" over Colles's estate and is pretty sure what good works his son George Wetmore Colles did with the funds he pilfered from it. "To what extent does James Colles owe his wealth to the slave trade?" is another question that gets asked and answered. There is some profanity in this episode, and Taylor explains that hooking up with cousins in his family is definitely a thing, "but only because we all find one another so attractive!"

The founding sponsor of Relative Strangers is FamilyTreeChart.com. Use promo code METROPOLITAN to get 10% off your first order. Please follow the podcast on Instagram at RelativeStrangersPodcast, where Taylor is generally a little less dramatic.

One hundred sixty-one years ago today—on July 1, 1863, which was a Wednesday—Frances Colles Johnston, the 37-year-old wife of John Taylor Johnston, took advantage of the sudden quiet in her father's summer house in Morristown, NJ, and dashed off a letter to her baby brother George Wetmore Colles who was fighting for the Union Army in The Civil War. In this episode of Relative Strangers, Taylor Mali talks with retired educator Kate McCabe, the self-proclaimed "Morristown Girl" who lived across the street from the Colles summer house and has been inside it and played in its back yard. It was McCabe who found the original handwritten letter and brought it to the attention of this podcast. The letter itself is read and performed by actor and friend-of-the-podcast Megan McQuillan.

The founding sponsor of Relative Strangers is FamilyTreeChart.com. Use promo code METROPOLITAN to get 10% off your first order. Please follow the podcast on Instagram at RelativeStrangersPodcast, where Taylor is generally a little less dramatic.

This episode is built around a 40-year-old recording of Eva Mali Noyes and her brother Henry "Harry" Mali conducted in 1984 by David and Rosemary Coffin. The recording was discovered by Cousin Amy Stewart Webb (1955) in a box of her mother's belongings, and the complete unedited recording can be accessed here. Cousin Taylor Mali (1965) had the audio restored (thanks to artificial intelligence and audio engineering teacher Chad Anderson), and he plays selected segments of the interview while providing context.

The founding sponsor of Relative Strangers is FamilyTreeChart.com. Use promo code METROPOLITAN to get 10% off your first order. Please follow the podcast on Instagram at RelativeStrangersPodcast, where Taylor is generally a little less dramatic.