No one was given the opportunity to consciously choose their parents and relatives. By the will of fate, a person comes into the world and immediately turns out to be part of a chain of family ties. He may not even know about many of them. There were times when people, having lived to an advanced age in ignorance, suddenly found out that they had relatives, about whom they had absolutely nothing heard before. And so, to mutual joy, a single person proclaims a half-sister or son of a cousin with a large family, ready to share warmth and intimacy with a new relative.
The family are those people who are supposed to be, if not loved, at least respected and appreciated. Those close to us are not thoughts and life views, like friends, but by blood. Thanks to the preservation of family ties, one can hope that there is someone who is always ready to lend a helping hand to you in trouble.
It used to be in families to have many children. When they grew up, acquired husbands and wives, they settled near the parental home. It often turned out that entire villages turned out to be related by kinship. And almost always everyone knew who had whom and by whom. In which hut does godfather, matchmaker, cousin or second cousin live?
Now times are changing, not everyone is in touch with relatives. We know our close people - parents, sisters and brothers, grandparents. But when the relationship is farther, many tend to get confused in its degrees. For example, how is your second cousin related to you? Not everyone can quickly navigate and answer without hesitation. To learn how to figure out family ties, one must have a well-developed memory. Of course, it’s much easier to peek somewhere than to remember that this is the son of a cousin’s aunt or uncle.
Counting will require more extensive knowledge. For example, a sibling is the son of your own parents. A cousin is a child of a uncle or aunt (i.e. a brother or sister of one of your parents). And the second cousin will be the son of a cousin uncle or aunt. The same uncle and aunt will be your cousin or sister of your father or mother.
Another example. To understand what kind of relatives a son of a cousin is, it is worth remembering that each child of any of your brother or sister (even relatives, even cousins, second cousins, etc.) is your nephew of the corresponding degree of relationship.
I admit, it’s easier for me to get confused in such genealogical intricacies than to understand. It turns out that any old woman from a long-standing village was smarter than me in matters of kinship. But there is nothing to be surprised at - my family is just one of those that hardly communicate with distant relatives. The desire for rapprochement has never been neither from our side, nor from distant relatives. Needless to say, celebrations by the whole family or grandiose anniversaries, where "all are ours." The old customs of nepotism are not in our place, which I sometimes regret.
I know that I have a second cousin, although I have never seen him. Cousins and second cousins are also there. Isn’t it time to stop regretting what was lost, and instead try to find relatives and establish communication?
