Amid pandemic, California neighbors discover they are long-lost cousins

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published 29 April 2020

For years, Erik Strom and his family wondered about the small island their ancestors once lived on in Norway, unable to find this mysterious Newton Island on a map.

The island is actually called Njoten, something Strom learned when Kjetil Njoten and his wife, Zoe Njoten, moved in a few doors doors from his house in Los Angeles County. Kjetil grew up on Njoten Island, home to just a few dozen residents. In English, Njoten is often pronounced as "Newton," and when Kjetil shared this with his neighbor, they joked about the possibility of being related.

Both men asked their mothers to look in family history books for clues, and they soon learned that they had the same great-great-grandfather, who once lived in the house on Njoten Island where Kjetil grew up. Strom told CNN he has a lot of relatives in the United States who are looking forward to visiting with Kjetil when it's safe to do so, and his wife, Jen, is practicing cooking Norwegian dishes until they can have a "huge family meal together."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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