I do think some ethnicities are far more likely to take family ties more seriously. My kid was on a road trip recently when the car developed trouble. The driver, another college girl, timidly called a distant uncle she hadn’t seen in 15 years. He came to give a jump start immediately.
He didn’t have to, and they would have managed, but in her culture family means a lot, even if they don’t see each other and aren’t close. I don’t have that kind of family, but I admire those that do.
@EarlVanDorn My dismissing of the nephew’s request wasn’t without basis.
DS was in this nephew’s country, in his town for an entire year. It’s obvious this nephew knew this because in the contact request he stated - is DS still in Berlin? Um no - he left 18 months ago. He never reached out to DS or made any attempt at contact while DS was living in the same town.
That, more than anything else, made it clear that contact with an estranged relative was not really the at the core of this ‘reach out and touch someone’ request.
A “grandfather’s double first cousin” is a pretty distant relative.
If you were close to her parents, the girls would have met-- or heard of each other-- as opposed to being " in all likelihood "distant relatives.
I say you drop it.
When I was in college, a girl I vaguely recognized but had never spoken to came up to me and said “I hear you’re engaged to my cousin.” I was startled and uncomfortable. I was indeed engaged, but this encounter came out of nowhere, and I had no idea what to say.
I eventually told her my fiance’s name, and we confirmed that he was her second cousin. And she told me her name. I don’t think I ever spoke to her again, not even at a family reunion a dozen years later (after I was married to her cousin), and I’m still not sure why she approached me. If I had been the first one to learn that my fiance was her cousin, I would not have approached her.
Social media would be the only method of contacting my kids…they haven’t dealt with the US mail service in years, nor have any of their friends. My daughter’s college encourages linked in accounts early frosh year so maybe that is why she would be more comfortable with this type of contact-networking is a skill they actively work on.
@EarlVanDorn if this is important to YOU, then YOU should pursue it.
Leave your kid out of this.
We can speculate all sorts of things, what if one day you need help or this distant person introduces you to your future fiance or leads to a great job, endlessly. But the reality is that social media is an impersonal way to contact others, no info, nothing more than throwing a dart. So feel free to contact whomever you wish, but don’t expect them to respond enthusiastically because you present as having a FB account and the same last name.
If this distant relative is important to you, give it more than the 30 seconds to hit a few keys online. If it matters so much to your sense of kinship, do more. Show it.
You took a chance with the minimum and the other gal didn’t bite.
I agree that this kid probably doesn’t look at FB much, maybe didn’t see the request, and if she did, just didn’t care enough to answer. Don’t let it trouble you. Most likely the kid is busy with her own life, not trying to snub you. I am surprised that the kids haven’t met each other since college students in a new place are open to meeting new people and a small connection like the same unusual last name would be a link. (Or were back in my day. I remember an eagerness to meet new people among freshmen in the fall.)
I don’t think it is weird for you to reach out. There was a time earlier in FB history during which people, and not just old folks who like genealogy, used to reach out to other people with the same or similar names. Like John Smith would be friends with lots of other John Smiths just because. Privacy settings could be adjusted to keep someone at arm’s length.
I think kids (well young adults) are still fairly self-absorbed at that age. If it is not in their immediate orbit of interest, who cares. I see this with my kids and their first cousins even. It’s not personal usually.
I met my second cousin at college. We talked for a few minutes freshman year, had nothing to say to each other except “oh, so your dad and my dad are cousins.” Nodded politely if we saw each other on campus after that.
So yes, it would be a nice story if they met and hit it off. But not a big deal either way.
I don’t think this very distant, unknown cousin is self absorbed at all.
I get a bunch of FB friend requests…and delete them all if I don’t know the person. I don’t expect to get to know stranger family members through FB.
I don’t mean ‘self-absorbed’ in a negative way.
I just mean they don’t look at extended family relationships in the same way some of us older folks do. When I was that age I didn’t either. I used to go to family reunions on my mom’s side of the family with hundreds of people and think “why am I here?”
I’m not sure when I got more interested in family history but it was pretty recently.
Today I’d love to meet 3rd and 4th cousins LOL. When I was in my 20’s - no. But that’s just me I guess.
One of my nieces didn’t accept my friend request and I didn’t take that personally. I figured she didn’t see it, or didn’t want the older to crowd to know what was going on LOL.
A distant cousin did a FB request with me a number of years ago, and I DID accept it. Frankly, I got tired of reading his posts…so initially I unfollowed him. Then I just ditched him entirely. I’ve never met him, and have no intention of doing so. TBH, I thought it was weird that he thought we should meet…since we are distant cousins.
No thanks.
Maybe the distant cousins will have a chance to meet in person and that would probably go much better. Did your D write a note with the friend request stating who she was and how she thought they were related? I feel like most kids would ignore a FB request they didn’t recognize but might be much more receptive in person.
In my family we are close with distant relatives to the point where my friends tease me about it. Oh, another cousin right - how many cousins do you have?! At one family party we decided we would call anybody under 30 a cousin and anybody over 30 an aunt/uncle. I liked that until I was the over 30 one!
My maiden last name is very unique - in fact my grandfather made it up when he came to America. (nobody here could spell or pronounce his actual last name so he changed it) When I first joined FB years ago I saw girl with my exact first and last name - same spelling and everything. I friend requested her. Never heard a thing. I think at the time she was about 20 and I think I was mid 30’s so she might have been freaked out. :))
Not everyone cares about blood. That’s not family to some people.
Weird snippet of my life over the last few weeks: we found out my dad’s uncle died and because he had no family that talked to him, laid in a morgue for 2 months before anyone found out (he has 2 sisters, neither of which are on speaking terms with him or each other). I ended up going with my dad and bio grandma (who I haven’t seen or heard from since I was 2) to get him and clean out his house (oh yeah, turns out he was a hoarder but that’s another story).
My grandmother decided she wanted to get to know me in the midst of all this. I have no desire to get to know her just because we have a familial connection. She’s no different to me than any other random person I’ve had to spend a day with for whatever reason.
Again, I love family history. I just happen to not care much for my actual extended family.
OTOH, Mr R has a half-sister that we only found out about a few years ago. He has no burning desire to meet her. THAT I think is weird but he has the same view on family I do, but to a greater extreme.
^^can totally understand that sentiment @thumper1.
I have a Facebook account but open it only rarely. It just isn’t something I do. When I receive a friend request from somebody I know (and thus might consider a friend, even if it’s a stretch) I’ll accept their friend request. Otherwise I’ll ignore the request.
Maybe I’m too literal, but someone I don’t know isn’t my friend and I’m not inclined to pretend otherwise.
Perhaps the distant cousin has a similar filter.
Let’s do a little arithmetic here, shall we?
I said that fourth cousins have great-great-grandparents in common. I was off by a generation. I and my fourth cousins have great-great-great-grandparents in common.
How many fourth cousins am I likely to have? It will vary a lot, obviously, but let’s look at a plausible order of magnitude. I have 32 g-g-g-grandparents, 16 couples. Let’s make the simplifying assumption that every one of my ancestors and removed cousins in their line have two kids. Then those 16 couples would have 512 great great great grandchildren including me. If we assume bigger families in older generations, then I’d have more than 511 cousins.
If someone comes to me and says they are one of my 511 fourth cousins, I’m not going to be very interested. Why would I be?
I had a friend I lived with for 2 years and during this time he was dating and then engaged to his now wife. She was never a big fan of his 3 roommates (myself included). About a year into their relationship my other 2 roommates asked her about her family name, it matched a name they both had in common and ultimately they all 3 figured out they were distant relatives (on her father’s side), it didn’t help their cause with her, she still didn’t like the 3 of us.
When they got married and we met her extended family her grandmother had a very unique first name, that juvenile humor would find quite funny and all of my friends fell right in that bucket. A week later I was with my sister, mother, and grandmother and was relaying the funny name to my sister. My grandmother jumped in and looked at my mother and said “that has to be your aunt”. A few questions later and it was determined that I was indeed second cousins with my good friend’s new wife. I called them as soon as they were back from their honeymoon, again this turned off his new wife.
20 years later we are not close and I think ultimately it is due to the discovery of our family tie. She did not like us when we were just friends and having a family bond made it tougher for her to write us off as juvenile “bad guys” as now we were family and you can’t choose your family. Getting to know distant relatives is not always a bonding experience.
@iaparent, I’m sorry but I feel bad that your good friends wife was so rude. I think it’s about her and not your distant cousin status. I am friendly to my H’s friends and would never be so rude.
It’s common human decency to be nice to your future husbands roommates and friends.