Relative Strangers
Poet and teacher Taylor Mali knows more about his family than anyone really needs to know, especially the branch that has lived in New York City for 400 years. However, they don't all know him or each other—they are relative strangers to each other—so getting all 450 of them to meet in person in the summer of 2024 is going to be a struggle or a train wreck.
Relative Strangers
4. One Skeleton at a Time
Every family has secrets, and you eventually realize that most of them are not being kept from the world but from OTHER SIDES OF THE FAMILY! In this episode, cousin Taylor Mali talks about some of those secrets. For example, did you know that John Taylor Johnston's father owned an enslaved person in New York City in the early 1800s?! Or that his mother slept with a man who was not his father!? Some relative strangers may think they recognize whispered scandals from their own branches of the family—especially in the poem Taylor recites somewhere in the middle (although you will likely not be able to tell when it starts)—but but there's nothing here to bunch anyone's pantaloons into too tight a wad. Nevertheless get ready to clutch your pearls!
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.
