It’s about stories. Stories about people. When the idea came to me, I wrote that Cousin Agam Fhèin would be “a bunch of stories that someone told about someone.”

Each story or storyteller or character in a story is connected somehow — to another story, or another storyteller, or another character. You don’t have to be from Cape Breton Island to enjoy them, but that might be the connection for you.

You don’t have to be related in some way to my grandparents — Mattie Ferguson, Sadie MacDougall, Jack D. Macdonald, Annie Belle Rankin — but that might be the connection for you.

Did you ever sit in the kitchen or the family room or someplace with a gang of friends and relatives? Hughie tells a story about his sister Cassie, and then John tells one about Cassie’s husband Art, and that reminds someone about the time his cousin Theresa, who went to school with Art, couldn’t find her car when she came out of church…

That’s Cousin Agam Fhèin. It’s my online kitchen. If you feel a connection to someone here who’s in a story or who told a story, well, it’s like you’re at my place and feel welcome to get your own drink out of the fridge. You’re not “company.” Even if you’re not a blood relative, you’re cousin agam fhèin.

What does Cousin Agam Fhèin mean?

It’s a hybrid.

“Cousin” is English.

“Agam” (a as in hat) means “my” or “belonging to me.”

“Fhèin” (f is silent; fhèin sounds like hane) means “self.”

So one meaning is “a cousin of my self” or “my own cousin.” Another is that fhèin emphasizes agam. So, my cousin, not just anyone’s. In Alistair MacLeod’s novel, No Great Mischief, Calum MacDonald explains it as “he’s with me.”

Here, cousin agam fhèin means anyone who shares in a story.

Whose idea was it?

Mine. I’m Dave Ferguson. I was born in Inverness, Nova Scotia, like my parents, Hughie Ferguson and Margaret (Greet) Macdonald. I grew up surrounded by so many stories, I hardly noticed they were there. I don’t remember ever living in Inverness (we moved to Detroit in 1952) but for me, Inverness is and always will be “down home.”

The Fergusons in Detroit are only one part of a community linked by family and friendship and stories about family and friends. I don’t want those stories to vanish. Cousin Agam Fhèin is a way to capture them.

If you’ve got one, let me know.

dave@cousinagamfhein.net