Lost Family? Found family! in keeping it postive

A couple of months ago, I clicked on a group in facebook having to do with photographs of “old” New York (since many were in my lifetime, I sort of question the “old” part of the name).

One of the people who’d left notes on the group’s pages had a name that runs in my family. I “friended him” and we started trying to figure out if we were really related and how.

We determined that we were cousins of some sort - my father was a cousin to his grandparents (he’s a generation after me). We shared some stories.

For some odd reason, I looked next to me at the pile of papers on the couch and noticed a family tree my mother had written up years ago… It was the family tree of my paternal grandmother. That’s the side this man is from… Lo and behold, there are the names of his father, uncle and grandparents!!

I messaged him again today and explained how it was that we were related. I remember visiting his grandmother when I was a kid. I went to the Bar Mitzvahs of both his father and his uncle (my generation). I remember one of them was born on the same day as I was and felt that all the “happy birthday” singing for him should’ve included me also.

Where did the paper come from just today? Don’t know. Did I know I had it? NO. Weirder things have happened for sure.