Sorting Out Who Is Related In A Community

I live in a small community, one third of the people are family and a lot of these do not know who is really related. To be polite, the children are raised calling older people "aunt" and "uncle" out of respect. The families that gather for holidays are the same every year, so getting to know who is linked took a great amount.

First one page was started with the grandparents. The people that had the grandparent print their name under the correct one. Then came those married in to the family, then came the children that came from those connections. Some were no longer connected but it was all written out, some were shocked at who was their cousin. Then came history to validate the connections. Some of the people were married to a 4th cousin and were shocked.

We put a large family fact sheet together to copy out and hand to the branches of family. Now those without grandparents to tell them would have the information. It made some family closer and put smiles on people's faces to belong somewhere and know you are not just floating around alone. I recommend this for many families.