planned a family reunion recently
 	
 	
 		
 
 		the last family reunion i did not plan i only participated and enjoyed about two years ago
 		how about you
 	
 	
 		you know i really haven't and i know of friends who've done it recently and have really enjoyed um
 		the the planning process but uh most of our family see each other fairly frequently so it's it's uh you know not a a major event to to try and plan it because we're all fairly close um
 	
 	
 		it often depends how far you want to go back on on our particular family reunion they went back to my great-great-grandfather
 		so that it was quite um spread out and there were many families um and there were many people we didn't know i think the total participation i don't know how many were invited but there were about two hundred and fifty people there
 	
 	
 		that's wonderful
 	
 	
 		and some of the families one of the cutest things that some of the the families families did was to get T-shirts that identified themselves as that branch of the family
 	
 	
 		
 
 		oh that's great
 	
 	
 		it was fun
 	
 	
 		so your great-grandfather was still living and everyone up to that point was invited
 	
 	
 		actually he was not he has gone  but they decided to go ahead and take the family reunion back that far so that it wouldn't just be people meeting third cousins but people meeting i guess
 		whatever fifth and seventh cousins
 	
 	
 		uh-huh wow
 	
 	
 		and the other thing that i thought was particularly fun was uh the huge they had a huge family tree uh that was posted so you could sort of everybody could sort of see who married whom and
 	
 	
 		uh-huh
 	
 	
 		so that was fun
 	
 	
 		that's wonderful two hundred people who organized it who was the one that instigated the the planning process
 	
 	
 		you know in every family there's usually one person that is gifted to do these things  i have a cousin who never marries who is a librarian sounds like a bad novel
 	
 	
 		
 
 		
 
 	
 	
 		um and she did she was she's always been interested in genealogy and she's kind of kept track  and so
 	
 	
 		i was gonna ask next how she was familiar with where everyone was
 	
 	
 		um i think she just started out writing to
 		key people in the different branches of families and asking them to contact everyone and i really  on the family tree there really was everyone except there was just some one group that had sort of gotten lost
 	
 	
 		uh-huh uh-huh
 	
 	
 		in Missouri but this is was in Indiana  and it was a lot of the people had kind of stayed in one area
 	
 	
 		uh-huh uh-huh
 	
 	
 		so it wasn't like they were necessarily from all over the country but
 	
 	
 		now given the size of the group were there people were most of the families fairly large is that what contributed to that
 	
 	
 		we're a good Catholic German stock and so yes
 	
 	
 		
 
 	
 	
 		the original family that i eluded to my great-grandfather had twelve children and they had some pictures of that that was another thing they did that i thought was fun
 	
 	
 		that's great
 	
 	
 		sounds like the trelve twelve tribes of Israel or something
 	
 	
 		that's wonderful i'm sure that was a wonderful experience for the kids too and even if they didn't appreciate it at the moment they'll  probably really appreciate it later
 	
 	
 		that's always true they remember most the games they had lots of games and competitions which were fun well are you planning a family reunion
 	
 	
 		no uh  uh
 	
 	
 		oh
 		do you how your relatives you're from San you're in San Francisco
 	
 	
 		yeah my folks uh moved from Michigan to San Diego and that's where they raised the three of us my daughter my sisters and myself
 		but uh
 	
 	
 		sometimes when you've moved perhaps your family reunion if there ever one would would be back in Michigan i mean that would be where your roots would be
 	
 	
 		i would expect yeah yeah
 		and i know that my grandparents' families were fairly large but my father has just one brother and my mom has one brother
 		so we've kept in touch those first cousins very pretty closely um i'm not quite sure how i'd even pursue finding the rest of the folks in Michigan
 	
 	
 		
 
 		this is a little office
 	
 	
 		i think i think each of my grandparents had ten siblings
 	
 	
 		that sounds
 	
 	
 		so
 		there's got to be a few of those second does that make second cousin or third cousin i'm not sure
 	
 	
 		typical
 		i never knew that i i always i thought the children like the children of your first cousins i always called those second cousins and my children and my cousins' children i called third cousins
 	
 	
 		
 
 		oh okay okay
 	
 	
 		that's how i've always named it some people have this once removed stuff and i don't know what that means
 	
 	
 		so perhaps my grandparents siblings would be my great great
 	
 	
 		they'd just be your great-aunts great-aunt your grandparents' siblings would be your great aunts and uncles
 	
 	
 		aunts and uncles
 		right right
 	
 	
 		and
 		so but it it is interesting sometimes a little sad when families branch out quite so much but i don't know that's the American way
 	
 	
 		did you find that you had a lot in common did people find out things about each other that they hadn't been aware
 	
 	
 		i had two distant relatives who lived in the Dallas Fort Worth area  that that i never had met and didn't know they were here and we we all laughed how it was funny to go back to Indiana to meet people who lived
 	
 	
 		really
 		
 
 	
 	
 		ten miles from you so that was sort of funny in fact one of them it's like my father
 		i don't remember how this was i guess it was actually just my father's cousin so it's not all that far away turns out he even goes to our church here in Dallas so
 	
 	
 		uh-huh