Calling All Cousins

THIS IS FOR THE DESCENDANTS OF RUSSELL & DOROTHY (last name withheld).

One of my sisters and I have taken on the job of trying to gather all of our cousins e-mail addresses, blogs & websites for our mother’s and father’s families. Now this may sound easy, but you have to understand that we are part of a very large family, on both sides. Sometimes it’s even hard to keep track of our own siblings!

We use to have family reunions for each side of the family. But since the grandparents have all died, it has become less and less often that we see each other. We even hardly talk to our aunts & uncles anymore. (No, I am not putting the family names on the blog. But if you think you might be related to me, post a comment and include your email address)

Recently, an uncle died. It was a shock for me to even find out that he had been sick for a while! Talk about a communication gap! It was then that I asked my mother to try and get as many e-mail addresses as possible. That started this whole project. But now I realize just how out of touch we have become.

There have been weddings, divorces, births, deaths, occupations, moves, grandchildren, joys, and sorrows that I have absolutely no knowledge of. And I want to! So maybe I am nosey, maybe it’s just interest. Or maybe these are people I love and care about who I want to keep in contact with!

There are so many silly memories of doing programs at the reunions when we were little kids. It’s hard to explain the programs to people who have never had their mother dress them up and force them to sing a silly song or do a silly dance. We usually had a theme and so we would dress/sing/dance in keeping with the theme. Some of the themes I remember are Gay 90’s, Hawaiian, Irish, and Pioneer Ancestors. There were lots more, since we had reunions almost every year, but my memory is getting selective at my age.

Since those family reunions, we have added 2 generations or more. Now you can begin to understand the difficulty in trying to track everyone down. It’s not just the cousins we remember, but it includes their children and grandchildren.

Some families lose touch with each other and that’s that. Well, that’s not for me. I love family and want to keep in touch with as many as possible. So here we go. . .