I have always been interested in family. I grew up starved for family connection. It took me at least 900 miles as a kid to go from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania to where there were close relations and cousins. One of my big disappointments when our family moved to Texas when I was 9, was discovering that we would still be 900 miles away from them, when I was hoping beyond hope that somehow we would be closer.
I loved being around my cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles. In ways I could never explain, I knew they were part of me, and I was part of them, and they could never cut me off. I would never be shunned.
So many of my friends had relatives near by and they were almost complacent about them. "Him? Oh yeah, he’s my cousin. Whatever."
I could not grasp that thinking. I could not make sense of it.
A while back a very distant cousin to me, Carl Budd (4½ cousin?—ha ha), got into contact with my youngest son. And Leigh told me about this guy. He came from a part of my family that none of us knew anything about. When, over the months I began putting 2 and 2 together and slowly updated him with what little I knew about my side of the family, he then sent a family tree that showed me scores and scores and scores of relatives I had previously known absolutely nothing about. I was stunned. It was, and still is, very difficult for me to take the enormity of it all in. I am having a hard time comprehending what I am seeing.
One of the tools, though, that has helped me immeasurably is FaceBook. I am astonished, how, with a little detective work I have been able to figure out who some of these people are, and to date, I have connected with 5 of my distant relatives. I get to see their faces, and learn about their children. It is like a whole new world is opening up right before my eyes. I am still in a state of amazement.