Hello! So something interesting (and pretty amazing) happened recently to my paternal grandmother (Who I will be referring to as Ah Ma). I do not know the details, but basically her half-brother from China had been searching for and wanting to meet her since he heard news that she was still alive and well in Malaysia. He is in his 70s, and Ah Ma is 94 this year. His whole family went all the way from their village in China to Malaysia just to meet my Ah Ma for the first time in their lives. Unfortunately I was not there to witness this amazing experience, although I heard that it was rather emotional and full of tears. One other known fact was that this family (my very distant relatives) had carried a photo of MY DAD holding MY BROTHER as a new born baby, all these years. The photo was laminated and well treasured until this day. This photo is older than I am. (It is also unclear how the family got a hold of this photo… mysterious!!)

The point of this backstory is that it got me thinking… Man, my family is HUGE. I am definitely interested to trace my family tree and find all the links but it may be too much work. On my dad’s side of the family alone there are over 50 people over 4 generations who are regularly in touch with each other. My extended family must be even bigger! It is just kind of crazy to think that another Chinese person on the street could be related to me one way or another, by blood. There are many relatives and distant relatives out there, living their own lives… and we are not involved in each other’s lives at all. We might have even met before and did not know we were related!

Having grown up mostly away from relatives, I did not get to know many of my cousins/nieces/nephews well or sometimes even by names. I remember my first nephew when he was a baby. Facebook can be an amazing thing at times and helps me to be connected to people who I otherwise would not have contact with, like my distant relatives. I saw some pictures of this nephew ALL GROWN UP… I mean, he is a teenager! However, the main point is that I could not and would not have recognized him at all if were had bumped into each other on the streets. I might not even suspect it if we spoke to one another. That is pretty crazy! I think the farthest reach of distant relatives I know of are maybe cousins of my parents (and maybe their kids?), and my great grandparents on my mom’s side. I do hope that one day I get to learn more about my family history and about all the connections there are. It should be pretty interesting. Hey, perhaps it can be yet another goal of mine for this year?

What about you guys? How much of your family background do you know of? And how many distant relatives are you even remotely acquainted/friends with? I would love to listen to your stories. I find this topic very fascinating. So to answer that question in my blog post title... I would like to say that it is not impossible that we might be related. :)

Thanks for reading & supporting my blog! You are awesome! :D

Cheerios,

Viv♥

p.s. I will be updating this blog every weekend! [between Fri-Sun] I will give a heads up if and when I get too busy to do it weekly, but my goal is to blog at least twice a month! So far, so good. ;D

#family #familytree #relatives #thoughts