My Uncle Bede was watching a Jeopardy re-run from 2012, and up pops a Farabaugh. I didn’t know Jeopardy had re-runs. I assumed 5 nights a week were enough. So, this is Michael Farabaugh, a Chemistry teacher, and Bede wants to know how we’re related. There are 27 Michael Farabaughs in the database, but no problemo. This turns out to be Michael Anthony Farabaugh, the grandson of my great-uncle Fred Farabaugh. This means he is but one of a gazillion second cousins whom I’ll probably never meet. Anyway, Michael here is a pretty entertaining fellow, and he did well. In this teacher’s tournament, he went all the way and ended up as the overall runner-up, winning $50,000.
I was interested to see how Alex Trebek handled the Farabaugh name, since my informal polling shows that the Augustine branch with Michael tends to say “FAR-a-baugh” and all others lean toward “FAIR-a-baugh.”
In the video below, Alex gets involved. He gets Michael to sing his version of the Jeopardy song but at the very beginning he pronounces his name as FAIR-a-baugh! I was shocked and appalled. Augustine is rolling over in his Carrolltown grave. But then I remembered that Alex was from Canada, where German cognates are uncommon.