Okay, I'm from Asia (Manila) a place where the idea of “clans” run really deep on the culture. My dad introduced me to a couple from another province the other day saying that they were relatives of ours.

And i go, “How did that happen?”

“The husband is the something grand child of your great grandmother's older brother something”

I did the math, that's technically a fourth cousin, a different family tree altogether and a pretty loong connection…and they are still relatives?!

Do you guys have something like this? I mean how far out the family tree does your definition/treatment of recognizing relatives go?

Well, I don't get to meet/spend a lot of time with relatives because most of my extended family is in Britain(I'm in Canada), so I haven't really had that happen or thought about it much.
I'm supposed to be related to Rob Roy MacGregor somehow, but I have no idea how remote that family tree is.

I'm a mutt with a huge extended family lol.

To the BEST of my knowledge, I am, in no particular order, English, Irish, Italian, German, Dutch, Iroquois (Native American/Canadian) and French. I'm pretty sure I'm mostly English and Native American, Irish and Italian being a close second, and so forth. I have a relatives on my mom's mom's side and my dad's dad's side who have researched our families('s?) histories back to them coming from England in the 1600s (I have 17 patriots on my mom's side from the Revolutionary War. One of my dad's ancestors was a Loyalist General. Weirdly enough, they had the same family name but aren't related.) My mom's father's cousin, who was always treated as an uncle, researched their family back to running away from the mafia in Palermo. The Iroquois part of my family is supposedly documented, but my grandmother is so embarrassed about it no one is aloud to see the documents until she passes away.

Anyhoo, because I know a lot about my extended family and like asking about it, I think I include a lot of my third/fourth/etc cousins as part of my family. I remember going to visit the gravestone of my Poppy's sister who died as a little girl, who was buried under the last name “Delaney”, which was a name I had never heard of in reference to my family. I asked if it was Delaney like the last name of this one girl in my class and it turned out we were third cousins. I told her and she was super excited and after that we had a weird familial bond.

Adariel
Okay, I'm from Asia (Manila) a place where the idea of “clans” run really deep on the culture. My dad introduced me to a couple from another province the other day saying that they were relatives of ours.

And i go, “How did that happen?”

“The husband is the something grand child of your great grandmother's older brother something”

No. In general my family is limited to the simple, modern western conception… getting less familiar and less of a connection the further it goes from the core. I know of my extended roots and the larger family tree, but we have no “clan” type affiliation with one another.

There is an exception however- Part of my family is Australian aboriginal. My aunt felicity married Paul Wonbon, who became my uncle. I have a lot of cousins on that side and they're all fantastic guys, though we're not too close these days, but in aboriginal culture the idea of tribal affiliations and being much closer to extended family connections (clans, kin, etc.) IS a real factor. So on that side of my family, I do have the clan thing.

We met a lot of interesting people at my grandmother's funeral, from far out across Australia and deep out in the outback, all coming to give her a good send off. These were people who I only have the most tenuous and distant extended family relations with who nevertheless great you and see you as close family, the older people all become “Aunty” and “Uncle”. It was quite lovely.

Considering both of my parents were the youngest children of families of 7 and 8 respectively, my familiarity with my relatives goes about as far as cousins. Of whom there are probably trillions.

Although I guess on the heritage side of things, my family descended from an Irish clan that was an incredible annoyance to the other Irish clans. So much so that the British had the whole clan moved to another part of the island so we wouldn't get collectively murdered.

I know absolutely nothing about what happened between that and America though.

I'm descended from Russian Italian, Spanish and whatever else has been in the mix for who knows how long. The Russian could be interesting if I had more solid facts, my great grandfather escaped a concentration camp and trudged through Siberia, eventually making his way over to england and changing his name. Before the cold war ended I was told that if I ever went to Russia there was a chance i would not come back.
It turns out my sons study buddy at school is actually a cousin of some sort but hardly enough to be considered family.

Well, my great grandparents on my mother's side had 8 children, of which four married and had children themselves. Most of my extended family still live locally, and thus we have a sort of annual family reunion every Christmas.

Most of father's side, on the other hand, live in England, so I haven't even met many of them yet.

My dad's side of the family really likes to have sex. My dad is 1 of 10 kids and they all like to have sex too. I have around 50-60 cousins.

well fourth cousin is legal here XD but it differs really… Hell, I even count some of my 2nd and 3rd cousins as not part of my family cause I don't know them…

Well, most of my mum's close relatives are dead besides her niece and the cousins she discovered a few months back. She's been trying to catch up with them recently.

But I guess the most distant we've ever had someone we define as a relative has been my mum's niece's cousin's sons.

However, up in Scotland on my dad's side of the family, they all pretty much treated my grandmother's childhood friend as a relative. And still do. Despite her son being roundhouse kicked in the face by my dad's cousin on my uncle's 40th…

The relationships have been slowly patching up since but I doubt anyone will ever forget it.

By contrast, I have never consciously met my only surviving grandparent. And I haven't been in contact with my half-uncle for a decade now.

Anyone who's willing to BE a relative IS a relative in my opinion. Doesn't matter how distant they are. You could be a descendant of my great grandfather's secret second family (True story. Git even named them the same as the kids in his Liverpool family so he didn't have to remember who was called what.)and I'd still welcome you with open arms!

it depends.

My father was the youngest of 8 (with his oldest brother being as old as my mother's dad, or papaw)
He got pissed at his dad and ran off, so i never met that side of the family.I've just recently begun to interact with them.
My mom's side of the family is HUGE. My grandpa's side of family (my mother's aunt and down) all live in the same house (and area, family land and all that) my grandpa, and his dad and his dad grew up in. so when we moved to indiana, they were my family. there was no “extended” we were all nuclear basically.

My grandma's side all live about 2 hours from that location in lafayette indiana…they hold super extended family reunions every year, and i don't even know how many people there are. (my mamaw had 10 brothers and sisters, and each of them in turn had a gagillion) it's so extensive, that when i moved to indiana, and went to the first one, i found out that one of my friends from arkansas was my fourth cousin. it was crazy, cause my mom didn't know until they showed up at the reunion.

it sometimes makes me wonder about my relation to my wife…(not really, blood tests are mandatory in indiana)

Relatives to me, usually mean uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins. The closest I've gotten to distant relatives was when I was going to vacation Disneyworld and my mom somehow met my grandma's cousin's niece's daughter or something like that. We stayed at their house for two nights before moving on to Disneyworld. They were pretty nice about it. We haven't had contact since.