(Old Post from Drafts) Family

I wrote this post 3 weeks before I found out that my mum's older brother was going through absolute hell with a brain tumour, which was squishing his brain. He didn't answer my emails because he was going mad, and my cousin must have thought I was a lunatic asking for family information while his dad was so sick. Three weeks later he was dead and we were in the UK. Although to be truthful we didn't know each other - my mum had no idea.

Still researching family history though. 

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I always liked the idea of having a big family. I don't know why, but I just do. We had a small immediate family. 5 people. Mum, dad, my siblings and I. My dad's family lived 15 hours away, and because we saw them every other Christmas we weren't really part of the clan. My mum and her family fell out when I was about 8 or 9. 

I think it's the feeling of belonging somewhere. I don't necessarily believe that your family have to be blood relatives, but the thought of belonging to a group of people seems to be a nice concept. 

I started tracing my mum's family history because I knew it was really important to her. I think she feels the same about 'belonging' to someone. I think she secretly hates the fact that she no longer has 3 children close by. She had no history, and I wanted to find it for her.

I did okay, but there is more I need to do. I've found enough to make it interesting, and enough to make it frustrating when I can't find something.

I think the part that I thought wouldn't worry me, but has was not getting responses from people I have contacted. My mum's father who left when she was 3 seemed over the moon to meet her for the first time a couple of years ago. I am yet to get a response. Also, my mum's older brother who broke away and worked his guts out to prove he was better than the family who raised him (drunk, voilent, poor). No response from him either. Nor his 17yo son, who I found on Facebook and send a message.