Do you know your second cousins?

Emily Thorne

Fri, Aug 15 2014, 12:51 pm

lets see.. my paternal grandfather survived the war with 8 of his siblings each one having hundreds of grndchildren.. my maternal grandmother has 2 sisters who survived also having tons of grandchildren.. and we all belong in the chassidus - satmar. so its basically everywhere I go I bump into a cousin. literally. my sons go to yeshiva in israel for the first time and they call me "mommy, there's 4 more of our cousins here. dh has around 6 - 7 cousins in his office!

Ruchel

Fri, Aug 15 2014, 12:56 pm

Definitely the feeling is there even without meeting IRL, or without seeing for decades. Only those who know what it is, can understand. The same way, I can't understand hundreds of close cousins.

MMCH

Fri, Aug 15 2014, 12:57 pm

yes, very close! on my fathers side, my first cousins all live far away and are a lot older than us.
I grew up with 3 second cousin families on my block, and another a few blocks away. we are very close.

on my mothers side, none of the second cousin families are religious! so there goes that. don't know where they are, or what they do. unfortunately.

zigi

Fri, Aug 15 2014, 1:09 pm

I do think it depends on who the parent is close with I am closer to some branches of the family than others. it also helps that they live closer and not across the world. I was just at a family reunion it was amazing to see everyone. and see how I was related to people in my community.

I went to school with some of my second cousins

Last edited by zigi on Fri, Aug 15 2014, 1:14 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Fri, Aug 15 2014, 1:34 pm

I don't know mine. They don't live nearby.
My kids know some of them since they go to the smae schools. We also have once a year a get together with all my first cousins from one side so my kids get to see their second cousins.

gittelchana

Fri, Aug 15 2014, 4:41 pm

morah wrote:

I was just wondering about this, as I am very close with some of my cousins and it is quite likely that when they have kids, my kids will know them well. At least I hope so. I know who my second cousins are but do not know them well. I have none on my dad's side- his parents are the sole survivors of their respective families, so he has no first cousins (though b'h he has 5 siblings). I have a few on my mom's side, but I don't know them well enough to keep it all straight, and some are a lot older than me and the others are a lot younger. So I'm just wondering- how well do you know your second cousins? Do you have a lot of them? Do you remember who they are at simchas? Do you invite them to your simchas?

I know first, second and third cousins. Not all though. When it comes to invitations, it depends on how close or far you are and which side of the family it is.

zaq

Fri, Aug 15 2014, 7:06 pm

Depends. I have first cousins on several continents whom I have never met or met once or twice in my life. I have second cousins who are almost like sisters and one or two "we're not sure exactly how we're related but we think it's some sort of nth cousin umpteen times removed" with whom I'm very close. Many factors go into this: geographic proximity, similarity of ages and stages of life, how close our parents were, and most of all, personality.

Close or not, we invite them to our simchas, knowing full well that the ones on other continents or across the country are not likely to attend.

chanchy123

Sat, Aug 16 2014, 3:16 pm

I guess it depends my second cousins live in different continents. Every so often we'll get a visitor in Israel. My father is not very close at all with his cousins to say the least and we never knew much about them or their children. A few made the conscience decision to contact my grandmother. Some have come to visit when in Israel. The very few who became frum have more contact with my grandmother and through her with us.
My mother's family is closer, at least on her mother's side. As long as my Bubby was a liver she'd keep us up to date. When we were younger we'd have more contact with them now less so . However the contact has been renewed with one branch and even though they live in another country we are close. At least my younger siblings and first cousind who are closer in age.

Pandabeer

Sat, Aug 16 2014, 11:25 pm

On my mothers side I'm close with all (my ages) even 3rd cousins.
Only when I was older did I realize that some of my cousins are closer than the other.
On my fathers side, I knew a lot of them and now that I moved to the states where a lot of them live I make an effort to go the their weddings