Every once in a while, someone asks if I’m related to John Lind and his family in Hana. When that happens, I have to drag out my notes and remind myself of the family connection.

For decades, this remained a mystery. It was my late sister, Bonnie Stevens, whose genealogical research, including a trip to Scotland, finally yielded the answer. Here are the basics.

John Lind was born in Scotland in 1880 and came to Hawaii in 1910, the first of the Lind family to arrive in the islands. He was a first-cousin of my Lind grandfather, William Grace Lind, who emigrated to California about ten years earlier.

This “first” John Lind worked as manager of several ranches on the Big Island and Oahu, including the Hind-Clark Dairy and Kaneohe Ranch. He died on Maui in 1962 at age 81.

John Lind was married Helen Crichton, who traveled with him from Scotland. They named their son, born in about 1919, John Crichton Lind.

John C. Lind, who also became a ranch manager, went by “Jack” to distinguish him from his father. At the time of his father’s death, he was manager at Hana Ranch. Jack Lind’s wife, Daisy, is still living.

Their son, John Crichton Lind, Jr., of Hana, is about my age.

We are, by my reckoning, 3rd cousins. Our Lind grandfathers were 1st cousins, and their fathers were brothers.

One thing I haven’t figure out is whether Helen Crichton was any relation to Robert Crichton Wyllie, who was quite a large figure in Hawaii history.