Does your circle include your Cousins? How far out do you keep in touch – first, second, third? With all the social media available to us we have access to so much information. I personally am in touch with so many generations and layers of Cousins, I forget where they are on the family tree!
The family tree and its branches and roots go very deep. I think that in order to understand who your Cousins are, you need to follow strings from your parents to tie them all together. I have Cousins that are from my paternal grandfather’s (great uncle) brothers and sisters that I have never seen and if I did, I was so little I wouldn’t know them from the next person! I do, however, keep in touch with a few others on that fantastic website Facebook. That, my friends, is a great way to tie those strings together if your parents are no longer with you. We may not have seen each other for a long time, but our hearts are connected.
I absolutely love seeing my family tree spreading out. Marriages and babies all came from two people who started something that they could never have guessed would be so big.
First Cousins have a special bond. We use to see first Cousins on a yearly basis. Now with our children growing and having their own children it certainly gets harder. Now, sad to say, we tend to see each other at funerals. They were the first people you got to spend time with on many holidays, camping trips, graduations, weddings, and funerals. Your friends didn’t get to go to your family functions. Second Cousins were always older and had more in common with your parents. As you got older, they are the ones that you can now relate to and learn more about the strings that tie you together.
Going through pictures with my parents this fall, I was amazed at some of the pictures they had of my favorite great uncle. Really, they are pictures that would be appreciated by his children. I know my paternal grandmother had given them but now I think they need to go back to my second Cousins.
Memories play an important part in keeping our strings tied to each other and when we get together now, as adults, how much more fun it is to reminisce about those times!!