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Are you closer to your Mother or Father Side of The Family? I know My Dad Side of the Family (Mother, Siblings and 1st Cousins) well however I am closer to My Mom side of the Family and know them better especially her Extended Family. My Dad more extended Fmaily are more like strangers to me.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Same as you, OP, we all get together annually at my Mothers for an annual weekend get together with extended family from 3 states. My late father's extended family (only cousins left) we haven't seen in over 20 years.
For some reason, my mother's family:
My moms side of the family is from Germany...her parents moved to America before she and her siblings were born, but then moved to South Africa. Even though my mom stayed, her brother and sister both moved to south africa and ended up raising families there so all of my family on my mom's side, aside from my uncle and aunt, are either South African or German. My dad's side of the family is African American, they mainly live in Houston, Texas and Long Beach(LA), California. Even though they are all American (which means we share closer cultural values/outlook on life) I still feel much much closer to my mom's side of the family. I'm definitely not distant from my fathers family, we get along quite well and I enjoy having BBQs with them for the holidays, I just feel closer to my mom's side for some reason.
My mother and father both came from families with ten siblings. Most of the aunts and uncles had at least 5 or 6 kids. I literally couldn't even name all of my cousins.
Some of the aunts, uncles, and cousins on my mothers side were the ones we knew growing up. The rest lived all across Canada and the U.S. and we very rarely saw them (some I never met).
Rarely saw anyone from Dad's side. They weren't ever a close family to begin with.
Are you closer to your Mother or Father Side of The Family? I know My Dad Side of the Family (Mother, Siblings and 1st Cousins) well however I am closer to My Mom side of the Family and know them better especially her Extended Family. My Dad more extended Fmaily are more like strangers to me.
I'm closer to my mom and her side of the family just because my father pass away due to having melanoma skin cancer. I was like 2yrs old at the time and so I don't know much of anything about his side of the family.
It's changed over the years...I am 78, by the way.
When I was a child it was definitely my mother's family. She had three sisters one lived in our town, one lived on a farm in the hills about fifteen miles away (and the sisters' stepmother lived in a tiny village on the way there) and the last sister lived in a city only 20 miles away. Only one had kids and they were in their late teens when I was a grade schooler. Nevertheless, these were the relatives I saw constanly and knew well.
Several of my fathers brothers and sisters lived in a city about fifty miles away. My father worked seven days a week, and we only went to see them about every six weeks. There were lots of cousins, but only one my age that I saw often - most of the others much older, or much younger.
I moved to NYC after college, and rarely saw my paternal relatives and my maternal one's only a bit more. My mother's family became very, very conservative...finally very racists, though they lived in a place where black people are few and far between..this was not something that I knew. However, my cousins had become very reactionary about everything.
My paternal cousins had various political and social views, but in comparison were very liberal. They were also religioius, which tempered their views perhaps. And they were as a whole more sophisticated.
My maternal cousins and I had reached the point of having nothing but very formal relations by the time I was in my sixties. When my interest in genealogy led me to follow up my aunt's private comment that her great grandmother was "not white," I discovered that she was probably the daughter of slaves freed by the British in the Am. Rev., and had been enumerated as C and N, and when she moved to the U.S. as "White." My cousins went ballistic. I was excoriated in words usually reserved for descriptions of the Anti-Christ. They have never communicated since as I am "evil."
One of my paternal cousins, who had immigrated to Brasil, came to NYC for medical reasons when I lived there; and that renewed contact brought me into contact with other cousins. For one cousin it is our shared interest in genealogy, for another it is simply a matter of being friendly, and I have come to deeply like one cousin's widow who is ninety and whom I liked in earlier years.
Thus, in old age it has changed from my mother's side to my father's side. My father's family kept very close, and the mother of one cousin presided as the matriarch, even though her mother was alive. I feel that some of my cousins grasp that the marvelous closeness of our extended family is dying with us, and that many of their children do not know their cousins at all. On the paternal side I have established one really nice contact with a third cousin in Ireland, who visited here with his family earlier this summer, and more casual contacts with other Irish cousins.
I picked mother but that was growing up. Nowadays, I am only in touch with one relative on my mom's side. Sad, isn't it. I reconnected with my father's family and we are still not close but keep in touch.
Don't know a thing about my dad's side other than him, he died almost 3 years ago. I am in regular contact with my uncle, his brother. My cousin (uncle's son) will no longer speak to me. He said I disrespected my dad after his death and didn't like the way I handled things. Despite the fact that I straight up allowed him to take his car (as long as he was able to take over the payments) and let him take whatever of his that he wanted and asked for not a penny out of what he died with. He drank my dad's kool aid for far too long. My dad was adopted, so his brother and my cousin are not blood related to him. He and his brother did not talk for about 12 or 13 years before he died. My dad's father died in 1985, shortly before my 3rd birthday. His mother died in 1999. I was close to my grandmother before she died, although I didn't see her for 2 years before her death, which was unfortunate.
I'd like to find out more about his biological parents and biological family though. I think I've located his biological mother and she lives 2 hours away from me, if this is indeed her. I've heard that many of the men in his biological family, do not live to be very old. He was just 50 when he died.
I still talk with everyone on my mom's side, both grandparents and aunt's and uncle's. Although I don't talk to my great aunt's and uncle's much, outside of being facebook friends with them.
I love them both. Slightly different vibe between the two families, but that's what makes me like them so much. I'm extremely happy and proud to have come from them.
I love both my parents but I tend to get along better with my dad..........
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