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walkitoutMy father mentioned a friend from school. I looked the friend up, and he's the nephew of my father's aunt-by marriage. So not precisely a relative, but close enough. I have a FB friend from the same family group. I started poking around some more today, to try to figure out if the friend -- LMP -- is still alive. I can, so far, find no evidence of his death. I've found his daughter and her husband (both on FB, and with the FB friend as a mutual friend, so I know I have the right people). Her husband (my father's friend's son-in-law, if you are keeping track) has a relatively public FB feed, and I see no evidence of other P. family members on it, beyond the mutual friend (altho it is possible privacy settings make those invisible to me).
I'm a little stumped. I could message my FB friend who is from that family group. I could reach out to the son-in-law. But I think I'll wait for now, because I recently got a DNA match on ancestry from my new-to-me cousin and I like to navigate these things one at a time. And I'm not sure whether I should attempt to reconnect my father with his childhood friend or not.
I'm never quite sure how to represent this kind of thing in the tree. The relationship is on the one hand distant in every way, but on the other hand has attained a sort of salience, as a named person my father once considered a friend. Given the enforced insularity of the religion my father was raised in and continues to be a member of, that's a really rare thing.
I'm a little stumped. I could message my FB friend who is from that family group. I could reach out to the son-in-law. But I think I'll wait for now, because I recently got a DNA match on ancestry from my new-to-me cousin and I like to navigate these things one at a time. And I'm not sure whether I should attempt to reconnect my father with his childhood friend or not.
I'm never quite sure how to represent this kind of thing in the tree. The relationship is on the one hand distant in every way, but on the other hand has attained a sort of salience, as a named person my father once considered a friend. Given the enforced insularity of the religion my father was raised in and continues to be a member of, that's a really rare thing.