Cousin Agam Fhèin

You’ve found a bunch of stories, mostly about people connected to Cape Breton Island. The stories aren’t about Cape Breton, though; they’re about family, and about the kind of friends who stopped being “company” a long time ago.The Sidebar shows the latest stories. Just click the title. Or use the shortcuts listed in the Sidebar under Categories:

• Characters shows the names of everyone who appears in a story. Click a name, and you’ll get all the stories with that person.
• Storytellers shows the names of everyone who tells a story.
• Stories brings up every story here.

Every story here connects to another one, or to a person in another story, or to a person who told one. The stories are pretty good, and most of them are pretty true. (If you want to know more, click one of the links under Background.)

The day that Cousin Agam Fhèin first appeared (February 5, 2006), people with no connection at all to Fergusons or Macdonalds or Cape Breton found it. They read the stories and right away thought of ones they used to hear and wanted to tell. Maybe that’s happened to you. I hope so.

I don’t know where Cousin Agam Fhèin will go. I’m pretty sure it’ll go in directions I never imagined. And that’s what I did imagine: a collection of stories, taking on a life of its own, with the voices of the people telling stories and the spirit of the people in them.

That’s what I want more of. I’m looking for stories that fit with the ones here. They don’t have to be about Mattie’s store or Jack D’s raspberries. They might be about you and your sister, or what happened at your second cousin’s wedding or your son’s first day of school. Mostly, they should be stories someone in the family likes to tell, and that makes them family stories.

If you recognize any of the storytellers or characters, and you think you have a story to add, you’re probably right. When I figure out how to make it work easily, you’lll be able to send in stories online. For now, you’ve got email and old-fashioned mail (you know, envelopes and stamps).

Eventually I want to have photos and even recorded voices, so people could send a tape or a sound file.

For now, if you want to send in a story, or just ask about a story you think you might send, send an email to

Or write me:

Dave Ferguson
9537 Duffer Way
Montgomery Village MD 20886
USA

The story is the story.
Is it true? As true as it needs to be, or wants to be.

Raisin’ the jar and raisin’ hell
There’s plenty of stories that they will tell
Some are born of true detail
And some are purely fiction

Well, I won’t post pure fiction, though I don’t rule out tall tales. And I won’t post lies. Otherwise, what you see is what the storyteller told. They’re about real people and real places.

The storyteller tells the story.

For now, you have to send the story in. I won’t “fix it up” unless asked, and even then I’ll just check spelling and things like that. I might leave out things that weren’t really part of the store — a comment made to me, in the middle of the story — but nothing that takes away.

When you see that a story’s by someone, that means what it says: the person is the storyteller.

If you see that a story’s by someone as told to someone else, the second person recorded the story somehow. That’s what I did with How the Fergusons Came to Detroit: I talked to my parents by phone, and taped the story. It’s by them, in their words. It’s as told to me, since I typed it up.

If you capture someone else’s story, like on tape, be honest and respectful. Let them say what they said. Don’t tidy it up. The storyteller tells the story.

If you’re retelling a story you heard, then you’re the storyteller. Recreate the way you heard it, if you want, but it’s your story.

“What’s your father’s name?”

On this site, I’ve decided to list people by the name most of their family would recognize, and women by their maiden names. That’s why in the Character list, my mother’s father appears as Jack D Macdonald rather than as John David. And that’s why Julene Summerfield is listed as Julene Coady.

We’ll find a way to include nicknames as well. For one thing, there’ll be a hell of a lot of Macdonalds to keep straight. (In the 1901 census of Canada, 10% of all the names in Nova Scotia were “MacDonald,” and 10% of the men in that group were named John.)

What’s Cousin Agam Fhèin about?

It’s about stories. Stories about people. Or, as I first tried to describe it, Cousin Agam Fhèin is “a bunch of stories that someone told about someone.”

Did you ever sit with a bunch of friends and relatives in a kitchen or a family room or at the back of a banquet hall while the reception’s winding down? Hughie tells a story about his sister Cassie, and then John tells one about her husband Art, and that reminds someone about the time his cousin Theresa, who went to school with Art, came out of church and couldn’t find her car…

That’s Cousin Agam Fhèin. It’s my online kitchen, a place for friends and family to hear a story–or tell one–for the hundredth time, or for the first.

You don’t have to be from Cape Breton to enjoy them, though if you’ve never heard of the place you may have missed out. You don’t have to be connected in some way to my grandparents–Mattie Ferguson, Sadie MacDougall, Jack D. Macdonald, Annie Belle Rankin–but if you are, you’ll enjoy the stories that much more.

And the stories aren’t all in the distant past. Between them my grandparents had over 60 grandchildren, and who knows how many great-grandchildren… each of those people has a story or two to tell. It might be about a parent, or a sister, or a spouse, or a child. If it’s worth telling, it’s probably worth saving.

So: if you feel some connection to the stories and the people: as I said, it’s my kitchen, but you’re not “company” — you’re cousin agam fhèin.

Feel free to get your own tea. See if you can find anything in the fridge.

What does Cousin Agam Fhèin mean?

It’s a hybrid.

“Cousin” is English.
“Agam” (a as in hat) is Gaelic for “my” or “belonging to me.”
“Fhèin” (f is silent; fhéin sounds like hain) is Gaelic for “self.”

It means “my cousin,” or “my own cousin,” or “my cousin (not someone else’s).” In Alistair MacLeod’s novel, No Great Mischief, Calum MacDonald explains it as “he’s with me.”

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

Whose idea was this?

Mine. I’m Dave Ferguson. I was born in Inverness, Nova Scotia, in the same town where my parents were born. We moved to Detroit in 1952, but Inverness always was and always will be “down home.”

I grew up surrounded by so many stories, I hardly noticed they were there. But stories need people to tell them and people to listen. The Fergusons in Detroit are only one part of a community linked by family and friendship and stories.

I don’t want those stories to vanish. Cousin Agam Fhèin is a way to capture them and keep them alive.

If you’ve got one, let me know.