Q: Why do the Snyders ceremoniously cut a squash on Thanksgiving?

A: In one of daytime's oddest rituals, the Snyders slice a Hubbard squash every Thanksgiving — and they often give this honor to a new guest. This tradition was introduced by late Head Writer Douglas Marland, who grew up on Snyder Road and presumably modeled the slice-of-Americana clan — traditions and all — after his own family.

Q: To which characters is Craig related?

A: Craig, Margo and Katie are half siblings (they share a mother, Lyla, but all have different fathers). Craig's only full sibling is Cricket, who lives out of town. Craig has a daughter, Lucy, from his marriage to Sierra (with whom he also shared a now-deceased son, Bryant). He also fathered baby Johnny in a one-night stand with the late Jennifer and considered Cabot, the baby he adopted with ex-wife Rosanna, as his son (though Cabot is now being raised by strangers for his safety). Through Margo and Cricket, Craig has three nephews: Billy, Adam and Casey, and a niece, Suzie.

Q: How many children does Emma have, where are they, and how is Jack her nephew?

A: Emma has six kids with late husband Harvey: Seth, Iva, Holden, Caleb, Ellie and Meg. Seth and Ellie both live in New York City, while Iva lives in Washington, D.C. and Caleb lives in Seattle. Holden and Meg, of course, live in Oakdale. Harvey's brother Henry adopted cousin Josh; Harvey's other brother Bert had two sons with wife Dolores: Jack and Brad. Therefore, Jack is Emma's nephew by marriage.

Q: How many children do Tom and Margo Hughes have?

A: Margo and Tom have one son together, Casey, but he has a few half-siblings. Here's the breakdown: Adam Hughes Munson is Margo's son with Hal Munson, Daniel Hughes is Tom's son with Emily Stewart, and Lien Hughes is Tom's daughter from an affair he had while serving in Vietnam.

Q: How are Gwen Norbeck, Carly Tenney, Rosanna Cabot and Molly Conlan all related?

A: Gwen and Rosanna are Carly's half-sisters and Molly is her cousin. Here's how it works: Carly's parents were Ray Tenney and his wife, Sheila. Sheila ran off and married the wealthy Alexander Cabot and had Rosanna. Years later, Ray had a fling with the scheming Iris Dumbrowski and fathered Gwen, but Iris pretended a young Carly killed her baby in order to keep Gwen away from the Tenneys. Molly is Carly and Gwen's cousin on Ray's side, the child of his sister.

Q: Where is John Dixon?

A: When Larry Bryggman abruptly left ATWT in 2004 after 35 years, his character was never written off the show. Presumably, he is still in Oakdale.

Q: How are Will and Casey related?

A: They're cousins, sort of. Will's parents are Barbara and Hal; Casey's parents are Tom and Margo. Barbara is the niece by marriage (and former stepdaughter) of Casey's grandfather, Bob (whose son is Tom), who is now married to Will's great aunt Kim. Will and Casey also share a half brother, Adam, whose parents are Hal and Margo, and an aunt, Frannie, who is half sister to both Barbara and Tom. Barbara was also once engaged to Tom.

Q: How could Holden and Lily marry if his sister, Iva, is her mother?

A: Lily's biological father is Josh Snyder, who raped his cousin, Iva, when she was 13. Since both Iva and Josh were adopted, Lily is not technically related to Holden. Lily, who was adopted by Lucinda, did not learn about her parentage until she was a teenager. She first met her twin sister, Rose (now deceased), who was adopted by the D'Angelos, in 2000.

Q: How is Dusty connected to the Stenbecks?

A: Dusty's biological parents are Gunnar St. Clair and Nicole Donovan, but until he was a teen, Dusty thought that stepfather Burke Donovan was his dad. When Burke died, he left Dusty in Karen Haines's guardianship, but after she left town, Dusty was raised by her ex-husband, John Dixon. Gunnar actually turned out to be a Stenbeck (having been switched at birth with James, the nanny's son) making his son, Dusty, the sole heir to the Stenbeck fortune. For that reason, James often wanted Dusty dead (to protect Paul's inheritance), but the Stenbeck fortune story was dropped when James "died" for the first time by plummeting from an airplane in 1983.

Q: What is the history between Mike, Carly and Rosanna, and what does it have to do with Parker's birth?

A: Rosanna and Carly are half sisters. Their mother, Sheila, left her husband, Ray, and baby daughter Carly in Musselshell, MT, to marry wealthy Alex Cabot. She then gave birth to Rosanna, while Ray remarried Sheila's sister, Lee. Therefore, the girls grew up thinking they were cousins. Rosanna and Mike fell in love in 1994, but they had many break-ups on their way to happiness. During one of them, in 1995, Mike met and slept with a just-arrived Carly without knowing she was Ro's sister. He reunited with Rosanna the next day, but when Rosanna threw her newly found half sister a birthday party, Mike realized Carly's identity. Carly schemed to let Ro overhear the truth just before her wedding to Mike, which was then canceled. Mike then slept with Carly a second time and she got pregnant. Carly miscarried baby Nora after a fight with her sister in 1996. Carly and Ro both left town soon after, but not before Rosanna set up a $50 million trust fund for her sister's next baby — provided the father was not Mike. When Carly came back to town in 1997, she learned that Rosanna had added another restriction to the trust fund: The baby had to be born by December 31, 1998, and Carly had to be wed to the baby's father. When Jack was wounded and couldn't have sex with her, Carly married Hal. She then had herself artificially inseminated with John's help. When she learned that John had used his own sperm, she divorced Hal and wed John, thinking he was the father. She gave birth on time, and Molly (her cousin from her father's side, so not related to Rosanna) switched the tests. Carly got her money, but six months later, it was revealed that Hal is actually Parker's father.

Q: How are Barbara and Lisa connected to the Hughes family?

A: Barbara is the daughter of Jennifer, Kim's late sister (and namesake to Barbara's daughter, Jennifer). Lisa's first husband was Bob, and they share a son, Tom. Incidentally, Barbara and Tom share a half sister, Frannie, who is the daughter of Bob and Jennifer. Frannie's look-alike half sister, Sabrina, is the daughter of Kim and Bob, and is, therefore, Chris's sister.

Q: Who are Lucinda's children?

A: Lucinda has raised adoptive daughter Lily from birth. With Craig's help, Lucinda found her biological daughter, Sierra, in the war-torn country of Montega in 1985. (Sierra's father was Jacobo Esteban). Her other (rarely mentioned) adopted daughter, Bianca, a Montegan orphan, works for the United Nations in New York. In 1997, new back story revealed that James and Lucinda had had an affair resulting in a baby that died shortly after birth (or so Lucinda was told). She was briefly led to believe that the baby had lived and was actually David Allen (later Stenbeck, later known as Reid Hamilton), but tests proved that though James was David's father, Lucinda was not his biological mother.