Whole Moon Is Family; Seating Guild Despairs

Lunar genealogists have finished matching every settler on the Shackleton Rim to every other, and the result is that all 41,000 of them are cousins. The Guild of Seating-Plan Architects called it "a catastrophe for placement" and asked for a recount.

The Great Cousin Reconciliation took eleven years and 300 workers. Lead genealogist Selin Wojcik said the finding is simple. "Go back far enough and the Rim has a few hundred founders. We traced everyone to them. Nobody is more than eighth cousin to anyone, and most people are fourth."

The Guild says that cannot be right. Its architects seat weddings, funerals and settlement dinners by feud, and a feud needs two sides that are not related.

"Our charts have always had a head table and a far table," said Emeka Lindqvist, the Guild's chair. "We now have one table, and it holds everyone, including the people who threw the lamp at the Hallam wedding. I have put them next to the exit. That was already where they sat."

The Guild has recounted twice. Wojcik's team has agreed to a third count, at no charge, to be done by hand.

Dilnoza Castellanos, a sixth cousin of the whole Rim, said she had known for years that her neighbour was family. "That's what makes it so hard to forgive. You can't even say he's not one of us."