My daughter headed off to school this past fall, and while it certainly wasn’t a factor in her choosing her school it happened to be about 40 miles from where my grandfather’s double-first-cousin settled just over 100 years ago. One hundred years is a long time, but a few of the children of the original cousin did come up for family reunions a couple of times. And I am close to and have done a lot of business deals with a cousin who is the actual owner of the land that the original cousin went down to manage, so I’m sure I know more about my out-of-state cousins than they could possibly know about me.
In looking over the list of incoming freshman at my daughter’s college I noted a student who shared our last name; in all likelihood my daughter’s double-fourth-cousin. I urged my daughter to try to meet the girl and explained who she was. My daughter asked to “follow” the girl on social media and was ignored. I should note that we have a somewhat unique last name, and virtually everyone in the South with our last name is descended from the same person.
Neither my nor my daughter’s world is ending. I just found it odd that this girl would hear from someone with her same last name and ignore it. At this point my daughter has no desire to make any further effort to meet her distant cousin, which I certainly understand. Anyone have a similar experience?
I have an uncommon-in-America name (not so uncommon in Ireland). During my senior year in college, I lived in the same apartment building with a guy with the same last name. I got his mail a few times, and when I took it to him, I got not so much as a thank you.
Being easily offended isn’t a very useful trait in life. Your kid probably doesn’t want to pursue this any more than the cousin does. Kids typically don’t care much about this type of family history anyway. Let it be, it doesn’t matter in the larger scheme of things.
I’d want mine to ignore random friend requests with just a surname in common, even an unusual one, for all sorts of reasons. If you’re that close to the land owning cousin, contact her/him, see what the link is to this college girl. If it’s a relative, use good old fashioned communication, not an anon friending.
My brother has a family member he periodically contacts. Thus guy “doesn’t know him from Adam” and doesn’t seem to care.
I get the Southern “kin” thing, DH and I stayed close enough to them. My kids aren’t interested in the cousins they’ve met. If one they didn’t know contacted them, they’d be on the phone to me, in a flash, wondering who this “random” person is.
Fourth cousins are pretty far removed, IMO. I’d drop it and not worry about it. My kids would have likely reacted the same way to a request on social media from someone they don’t know and haven’t met. Perhaps they’ll meet organically on campus.
As a general rule, I do not add people I do not know or have not met on social media. It is likely that the girl in question would react the same way. At this point no message or contact information has been exchanged to really suggest that they would be related, and quite frankly with so little context I would ignore it as well.
There’s a lot of personal information shared on social media nowadays and most people just don’t feel comfortable about sharing that with someone they don’t know or haven’t met.
@MomOf3DDs - YES! Literally the first thing that popped into my mind. Second was “I wouldn’t want my kid accepting that either”.
IF you felt compelled to have your daughter contact this person, perhaps a message sent to her campus email would have been better, explaining who she is and how they’re related. Even that is creepy, because of the whole parent viewing the incoming freshman list thing.
What is a double fourth cousin? Unless I was interested in meeting someone new, I would also ignore the request.
I moved to my town over a decade ago, and discoverd someone with the same name. We must be related, but I have never contacted him, and vice versa. Nothing odd going on here.
I think I get “double first cousins.” Way, way back, my sister dated my H’s brother for a couple years. If they had ended up married with kids, I could see them being referred to as double first cousins with my kids–since they’d be cousins on both sides of the family.
But I wouldn’t think that label would continue down three generations. I’d think of it as just “fourth cousins.”
My birth name is extremely rare and I’d be curious if I ever ran into someone with it and assume we might be related. But wouldn’t probably expect my kids to pursue it.
This is such a bizarre post on so many levels. I don’t allow strangers to follow me. I’m extremely interested in genealogy, too.
My mom’s maiden name is extremely rare. We’re related to everyone in the US that has it and I would assume the same for the native country. If someone with that name friended me, I might be curious but I wouldn’t give it a second thought if they didn’t want to be friends with me.
A while back, my parents went for a visit to their parents’ country of origin. They met some relatives there, distant cousins and such. When they came back, my parents asked me if I was interested in making contact with them. I had zero interest and passed on the opportunity.
I suspect this 4th cousin probably feels the same way, assuming (a very big assumption) that she even noticed the matching last name and suspected it was a distant relative. OP’s D probably also feels the same way but was being a good citizen and humoring her dad in reaching out in the first place.
Years ago when dh and I were first married, he went on a business trip to Italy and I accompanied him. Ahead of time, we decided to visit an island off the coast from where my grandfather had emigrated in the early 1900s. He was one of 8 kids and the only one to leave Italy. In the late 50s while my father was in the Army, he visited the island and met his aunts/uncles/cousins. Other than that, we had little to to no contact with them, and virtually none after my grandfather died in 1980. Armed with a list of their names and some black and white photos from my father’s visit, dh and I showed up at a small bar in the mountain town where the family was from, showing the pictures to the men inside and explaining in my passing Italian that I was an American relative. Long story short, they walked us around the corner to the home of my dad’s first cousin. That led to phone calls to all the relatives, some from as far as 45 minutes away. Next thing I know, a huge feast prepared, they put us up for several nights, took us around to meet my dad’s large extended family of cousins, etc. We had a blast.
Dh and I were saying later to each other…that kind of reception would never have happened here in the US. Meal after meal, impromptu “parties” to introduce us around, dinner invitations by the more cosmopolitan cousins who lived down by the beach, etc. Here in the US? Complete strangers showing up at your door and claiming to be related? I’m not sure they would get the sort of welcome here.
My point? I agree with everyone else - were that one of my kids, they would probably ignore the friend request. Now if I told one of my kids - “hey, this distant relative might be contacting you to meet for coffee, humor them and get together one time” then maybe. But some random person? I doubt it.
My maiden name, also very unique here in the US and even in Italy. Everyone here in the US with that name is descended from my grandfather - if there are any others, we have never found them. I would be open to meeting someone with that name if they contacted me, but I’m sure my kids would find it weird.
Also a unique name, and several of us have received similar requests. And, yes, we all ignore them. That being said, iI have also met in person people with family names and will jokingly say “we must be related.” We often are, but that’s about as far as it goes. I wouldn’t be offended by this at all.