Anonymous wrote:Yes. My mom is one of the youngest in a family of 13 kids. I don’t know all my uncles and don’t know most of my cousins.

+1

Same with DH. Big age differences, also.

Yes, my parents both broke away from their families when they got married (parents didn’t approve of the marriage).

Had an uncle, my mom's only sibling, who never saw us or showed any interest in us once his parents had both died (my grandparents).

Neither he, his wife, or our 3 cousins, ever connected w/ us again beyond basic politeness. (Declined invitations to weddings, declined invite but sent present for my parent's 25th wedding anniversary, cousins have not ever reached out in adulthood and only one acknowledged news of my mother's death (her aunt). We have no idea why.

I have met all of my full aunts and uncles, but there are a couple that I haven't seen since I was about 5 years old. There are one or two half- siblings of my parent (my half-aunt / -uncles) that I have never met. They did not grow up with my parent and only met briefly as adults, never introduced to the rest of the family.

Not sure if I've met all of my full cousins. Those aunts/ uncles that I haven't seen in almost 40 years - I have no idea if they ended up having more kids. Major dysfunction and falling-outs in that family, if it wasn't obvious.

No but my kids do. Neither my youngest bio kid nor my adopted kids have met my oldest sibling. My oldest kid met him when he was a few months old but never again.

Sure. Huge jewish family. I actually just found out a member of my family died a few years ago. There are tons of cousins I've never met or heard of.

Yeah, my immigrant parents siblings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does being adopted have to do with this question? I'm confused on that point.

I suspect the point is that people might be less likely to have met all of their bio aunts and uncles if they were raised by an adoptive family.

Sure, I understand what you are saying. But as we've learned with the invention of commercial DNA testing, lots of families have NPEs (not-parent-expected) or other similar secrets (e.g., the "sibling" who is really a grandchild, whole branches of the family no one knew existed, etc.). This is much, much more common than most of us previously imagined. The notion that the biological family is some sort of limited universe of people who all basically know each other - especially across generations - is kind of a myth. It's never actually really worked that way in practice.

Yes, many. It’s a sad story, but it’s not mine to share. Of course I wonder, but a I’d never breach my parent’s privacy like that.

Anonymous wrote:What does being adopted have to do with this question? I'm confused on that point.

I suspect the point is that people might be less likely to have met all of their bio aunts and uncles if they were raised by an adoptive family.

What does being adopted have to do with this question? I'm confused on that point.

I'm adopted. My adoptive mom comes from a huge extended family. (Grandma was one of 13.) Our family lost touch with all of the others. Myself and my cousins recently started a FB group and genealogy page on Ancestry to try and reconnect all the descendants. It's been a lot of fun.

Yes. My mom is one of the youngest in a family of 13 kids. I don’t know all my uncles and don’t know most of my cousins.

Yes, I have a local uncle I haven't seen since I was a child. He never had an interest in us.

Not full siblings. My dad has several half siblings and maybe step siblings (my grandfather was married for times) who I haven’t met/haven’t met their children. I have met his full sister and my mother’s siblings.

Just curious; one side of my family is very large and I have several aunts/uncles/cousins I have never met. Sometimes I wonder about them, mostly in a “I hope they are okay” kind of way