“Stories We Could Tell”

A few years back my brother passed along what I thought a delightfully fun fact: Jimmy Buffet is Warren Buffet’s nephew. Since then, I’ve been passing this little nugget along to all who would listen (and probably a few who didn’t want to but did anyway).
Unfortunately, yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) made liars out of both us—not to mention all the people we told (okay, so none of them cared enough to keep the fun fact going, but if they had, they would be liars too). It turns out that Jimmy and Warren might be related…but only distantly. Warren’s sister is an amateur genealogist and contacted Jimmy and hundreds of other Buffets years ago in hopes of piecing together her family tree. Jimmy responded (after a year) and actually became good friends with Warren’s sister. Soon Jimmy and Warren were good friends. Warren refers to the singer as “Cousin Jimmy.” Jimmy calls the financier “Uncle Warren.”
All of this has led me to question another fun fact that I’ve been passing around. Is New Mexico’s George Buffet (the man behind the candy cane) really related to Warren?