Family reunions. Ever been to one? What makes them special. I went to one last year.

[applegrove]

There were quite a few adults I had not seen in years and a few young adults i had never met. The women wore their silk tartan sashes. A few of the men, kilts. We sang but mostly caught up with each other.

But what always gets me is this one man from scotland. He had heard about distant relatives were living in the Ottawa area of canada so when he came to a bull shopping trip to ottawa, he opened the phone book and called around. He got in touch with our branch in 1980 and sure enough we had letters from his ancestor to ours (they were brothers, one of them immigrated to Canada). The two brothers had not seen each other since 1821. And we had not been in touch with that scottish branch of our family for 130 years. And that man from scotland had no relatives in scotland from that side of his family. He's been at several reunions since and even hosted a reunion in scotland in 1982 where he cleaned out his barn and set up a huge dinner table for his new cousins.

There are truly so many definitions of what a family can be.

[DeadEyeDyck]

1. In Georgia it is where you pick up a date n/t

[Initech]

2. I went to one in '04. Moms side.

It was fun because everyone on my mom's side likes to drink. And I have this one cousin - he and I got pretty crazy after a while. I'm sure my dad's side probably wouldn't be nearly as fun.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Wow, how cool is that? I only went to one family reunion as kid. It as ok. I got my

first Barbie at the auction.

[femmocrat]

4. I went to a couple of them some years ago. I hardly knew anyone.

The main topic of conversation was trying to figure out exactly how we were related to each other?

I still don't know who most of those people were. :shrug:

[alphafemale]

5. Just got back from one.

It was my aunt and uncle who are 87 and 88 and the last ones remaining from their generation. (My mom and another uncle passed away a few years back.) My uncles second wife was also in attendance. He married her after the death of his first wife. They've been together about 25 years now I think so she is certainly a member of the family. My aunt never remarried after my uncle died well over 30 years ago.

Also attending two sisters and brother as well as my oldest sisters son. I have some other nieces and nephews as well as two kids of my own but none of the rest of them had the combination of vacation time/travel funds to be able to make the trip. My nephew only was able to attend because his travel was subsidized by his mom as his Christmas present.

My uncle has 3 sons a daughter and many children, grands and greats but none of them were able to attend either.

They all live in the OH/WV area and the reunion was in FL where my aunt lives. This reunion was actually a surprise for her birthday. The wisdom of a surprise party for an 87 year old was not anything under my control. Most of the attendees though were her children and grandchildren and greats, who are my cousins and cousin extensions. They all still live in that general area of FL. It's fun to see these people again. We had a family reunion about 3 years ago with them that one of my kids and most of my siblings kids were able to attend. And another in OH that my uncles kids and so on and my other sisters son and so on were able to attend.

But at our reunions we at least know each other.

[Rochester]

6. never been to one, never would.

I don't have much of a family and that I do have, I hate most of it.

[Lucinda]

7. That is awesome!

I don't live in the general area that my family does, so I think that there would be a lot of people i don't know! We have started working on genealogy - long distance - so we're doing a virtual reunion of sorts. :)

[justgamma]

8. Every year and I love them.

We've been having annual reunions for 90 years. All the decendents of the couple who brought their kids to the US from Germany in 1853. Don't know many of the people that come. We all stay on our own sides. It's almost like having 6 different reunions at one time.

We used to go for dinner and games. Then all the farmers would go do their chores and come back for supper and a dance. Those were the days.

[tigereye]

9. that's really cool, the family tracing itself back and looking

for connections!

[whistler162]

10. Last year... learned things about my Great Grandparents

, fathers mother's parents, that I never knew and about my fathers father.

Nice to seee people I haven't seen in many years and barely remember.

Probably never happen again with that side of the family due to age.

[av8rdave]

11. Haven't been to one since High School

I have a lot of distant family in Western NY. There are two sides of the extended family. While they're all really nice people, and all show up at the reunions, the two sides hate one another and won't speak to one another. Nobody (including the family members from either side) knows why.

Life is too short for that kind of crap.

[bikebloke]

12. Not with my kin. Can I choose another family?

After the older generation died off, the rest of us scattered to wind and have nothing to do with one another.

Doing genealogical research, I discovered a bloke who has the common ancestor as me going back 330 years. He included the info in a book he wrote. I'm tempted to send him an email.

[bif]

13. We had them every summer for about 30 years

Until my cousin decided she didn't want to host it any more. So we're probably not going to have another one, is my guess. They were a lot of fun.