Has anyone made contact with "lost" but still living family members?

[Gillg]

What a lovely story, brigidmac!

In my childhood it was common to call my parents' friends Uncle or Auntie, so I grew up thinking that I was actually related to them all.  It took an interest in genealogy to sort out which ones were related and which were not.  That kind of naming created a group of people who were not related, but who were closer than just acquaintances, a third tier of relationship, if you like.  Nowadays, of course, youngsters just use forenames quite freely and this kind of quasi-relationship doesn't exist. 

My friend's parents who were not in the Uncle-Auntie group, were politely given the titles of Mr and Mrs.

[MollyC]

My godmother and her husband fell into that group of honorary aunts and uncles.  I had another apparently honorary aunt and uncle to whom I did not realise we were related, because nobody had actually explained the connection to me.  We knew them well because of a small company where my father shared an office with the uncle.

It turned out it was the aunt who was my father's 2nd cousin, and her husband had been invited to join what was a family business at the end of the 2nd world war, owing to a lack of men to fill the gaps.  I had been at school with their daughters without realising they were my 3rd cousins.

[Gadget]

I've just been having a phone chat to a 2nd cousin that I've not seen since the 1950s.

Her niece matched me  as  a 2nd cousin 1R on Ancestry - she'd lost touch with her aunt and I offered to help. I did some sleuthing and found details over the weekend! We had a chat about the olden days and exchanged contact details.

 

[Siely]

If you had the wrong identity due to unknown adoptions etc. and other things then many people seem "lost"

[mare]

I had a hand written letter awaiting me when I returned from holiday a few weeks back from a lady in Australia who was looking for a cousin and our address was the last contact she had for her. We bought in 2023 and moved in later that year. The previous owners were here 10 years and not the name she was looking for and most of the immediate neighbours have been here between 2 and 12 years with just 2 exceptions and they'd only been in the street 15 years. One recalled the name but no details of where she had gone but the other got back to me, after initially no recollection of the name, after thinking about it a memory was triggered of her shifting in with a son before moving to a retirement village and even remembered which one.

As an email contact was included in letter, I passed the neighbour's memory on and suggesting it would be worth contacting the village with hopefully some more information that could possibly help. I had also already perused obituaries but no name match.

Today I received a lovely email from Australia to say she had heard back from the village and that her cousin is still there and is well and happy and she would be writing to her     Apparently both are of similar vintage, as she also said they had gone to school together when she was living in NZ before moving to Australia at 17.   
 

[brigidmac]

my mother wanted to find out if dhe had cousins on her mothers side . when her mother had died a letter in er oossessions was from the birth mother who mentioned that she had a respectable son
so my nother knew that. she had a half uncle

meanwhile my mother had researched the childhood and residence of her mithers adoptive couple down as aged 70 to the 11 year. old maisie

my mother used to visit ' elderly aunty harritit & aunty  lucy. cookson

the old couple who informally adopted my gran had 4 grown up children   the eldest martha harriet married 3'times was aunt harritit & had lived nect door to the old ciuple for manyyears another daughter had died   when maisie was 6

2 brothers had emigrated to south africa

so their children including aunt harritits daughter lucy s few years younger than maisie
were my mums cousins by adoption

i managed to trace a south african descendant who knew very little if this family + had no photos but shared photos of the living family

[Doreen Peacock]

In 1963 I met my boyfriend (later my husbands) half uncle, wife and 3 children. Just weeks before they left England as £10 Poms. The family lost touch with them.

Just before Covid, I went to Perth W.A. for 3 weeks to meet my Son in Laws, Uncle also a £10 Pom when he left National Service.  We travelled and toured and went To Rottnest Island a Penal Colony near Freemantle. When we got off on return to land, we visited the Walls of Welcome of the Poms. I Knew the year they arrived and first/Surname...so scanned the Walls and found the ship they arrived on. The following day we went to Mandurah sailed around the bay and had a meal on the coast line. two days later we travelled home.

Got onto the internet and traced two, then the third child of the Half Aunt and Uncle; exchanged information of the missing years. Half Uncle had died,but his wife was 10 minutes away from where we were in Mandurah the day we visited....If only we had looked at the Walls of Welcome earlier in our trip of a lifetime, we could have met up with them.

On the same day while coasting around the bay, we met with two people from Billingham, recognised the accent! One lived two minutes from me; the other 10 minutes. Never knew or met them locally. What a small world! Who would have guessed?  Fact can be stranger than fiction.

[Zaphod99]

We are only here for 70-80-odd years.  Make the most of them.  Unless there are relatives due to your own earlier 'indiscretions', I say always try to make contact.

Zaph