Roost together
Once, while chicken tending, I forgot to open the coop until after dusk! The chickens had created their own roost on a pile of logs and were already in their half-asleep, “do-what-you-want-with-me” positions. It struck me that even if we didn’t have homes or families to gather with, we would create our own groups and gather as best we could anyway.
While getting pictures on my wedding day, my husband’s grandma was in a wheelchair next to me. I reached down and put my hand on her shoulder, while still looking at the camera. She reached up, softly grabbed my hand and looked up at me, then startled, she recoiled. “Oh I’m sorry my dear, I thought you were my family.” Having done family history, knowing spouses are family, two shall be one. Since my children will call her grandmother, I responded quickly, “But we are family.” 
Snap! That picture captured it all.
We truly are family whether married in or adopted or biological or wayback cousins. And sometimes you may be the only family someone feels like they have. Connecting with your past can also connect you to the present in ways you never thought possible.
I love to receive emails from previously unknown couisins who find their deceased family members in my famly trees. I don’t always know right away how we are related but learn so much from them and where they fit in with our shared ancestors. And some have become great friends as we continue to work together to add to the discoveries.
Relatives around me and Relative finder can help us see who around us is related. The website uses your free FamilySearch account while the app is included in the FamilySearch FamilyTree app allowing you to connect with others FamilySearch trees and see the relationship paths to each person. The ancestor stories you love to share could be a story your common relative has never heard. When you go out a few generations back and start adding names to your tree, there may be others in your own community who share that ancestor and could help do research to unite both your families. Or simply feel they belong after all, we are all “cousins” if you go back far enough.
A friend of mine said there’s no way you and I are related…turns out, she is my closest relative on my Relativefinder group aside from my own children! She recently completed her parents biographies. And as I hear about her parents, they are now also my distant cousins and I can see family similarities and want to know more. We began to share projects with each other and continue to find family.
So reach out, choose to connect and happy searching!
