There may be a better term for what I’m curious about in this thread.
The basic idea is to look at your “first cousins” and how far they have spread geographically from wherever your grandparents lived when you were born.
That would mean the relatives of yours who share maternal and paternal grandparents. If you have half-siblings or other such relationships within the generation of your own parents, do count those as well. I would prefer to deal with “blood kin” if it’s easy enough to do, but I know that many families don’t fit that pattern and I don’t want to be exclusive. So it’s the people of your same age group, related by blood at least some way, who are the focus group. Not their offspring, just the folks you count as “first cousins.”
It’s more to see how our families have spread out around the country and the world in the span of two generations.
Maybe I can describe my situation to give the example I’d like to follow in the thread.
Both my paternal and maternal grandparents lived in the same Alabama town at the time of my birth. My father had four siblings all younger than him and when I was born they lived in three states. My mother was next to youngest of five children and they all were living in the same state when I was born.
The children of those 9 families, mine plus four each on the two sides, are now living in:
Alabama
North Carolina
Mississippi
Florida
Texas
Tennessee
Virginia
Alaska
as best I know. Some may have moved since I last heard from or about them, but that’s got to be close.
That’s the sort of breakdown I’m curious about with other Dopers. My generation has spread out from four states to at least eight.
Let’s see here…maternal grandparents lived in several places, but mainly hometowned O’Donnell, Texas. My cousins now live in California, Washington, Texas, and Arkansas. Paternal grandparents lived on the old homestead outside of Palco, Kansas. That branch of cousins live in Alaska, Minnesota, Colorado, Kansas and I think Illinois (we’re not close.) Og only knows where their kids live.
Both sets of my grandparents lived in Indiana. The cousins now live in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, with one recent transplant (and, it sounds, a likely return) in California.
My husband’s grandparents all lived in Illinois. Those cousins now live in Illinois, Ohio, Colorado, and Oregon.
My roots are in Salina, KS, and go back for quite a few generations. Almost all of my cousins are in the KC area or the quad cities area. One has spent a significant amount of time in Poland. Immediate family is in either Florida or New Mexico, with one in Arizona. Some family is in California. The last Salina relative died a couple of years ago.
When I was born, my maternal grandparents lived in Barcelona; the paternal grandparents, in Pamplona (both in Spain).
One of my maternal cousins still lives in Barcelona, in the same flat where she was made. Her brother lives 1h further south, in the same town where their mother lives. In the paternal side, I’ve lived in Miami, Liberia (not the country: the town in Costa Rica), Glasgow and Philadelphia among other locations, but I’m now in Seville; I have a cousin who’s a nurse and spends most of her time out of the country (either with her boyfriend in France or in exotic locations with Medicus Mundi); another cousin is buried in the Himalayas; one lives in Madrid; several have lived out of Navarra for some time (including one who spent several years in Germany and has a daughter there) but are now back.
The boing-boing cousins are the nurse and me, because in our case the first question people ask our mothers is not “how is your daughter?” but “where is your daughter now?”: we bounce all over the place.
We are a military family. If there’s no one there now, just cause a ruckus, and we’ll be by in the morning.
Currently we are everywhere from Germany to Afghanistan to Japan and, of course, all over the USA. There is nobody currently in Australia, but it’s the first time in a while that’s been true. . .
Maternal side: Grandparents from Saskatchewan, moved to Alberta.
7 of 12 grandchildren in Sask, 3 in Alberta, 2 in British Columbia (though I’m a recent immigrant to BC: I started in California).
Paternal side: Grandparents from Ohio, one moved to California. 3 grandchildren began in Ohio (2 still there, one now in California) and then there’s me, see above.
Not much spread. A more distant cousin keeps track of all descendants of my g-g-grandparents (five living generations, down from six last year), and the spread is incredible. I think it depends a lot on the size of the pool to begin with.
I’m not certain where my paternal grandparents were born, but I’m reasonably certain that all of my grandparents did their breeding in South Carolina. 8 of my 9 first cousins were born in South Carolina; 1 was born in that area where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia come together, and I’m not sure where she was born from that selection. As far as I know, they all still live pretty much where they were born.
In my family there is some spread but not a lot. Dad’s side has stuck close, mostly in central Alberta since that is near where Great Grandma and Great Grandpa settled and some extended family still owns land. Some of us are further north or south, but mostly central and none outside of Alberta for more than a few years and only because of military service afaik.
Mom’s side is the one that spread out more but only some. Most of them live around New Glasgow (where they grew up) or Halifax (which is really not that far away). Several have spread west, into southern Alberta and one uncle was in Vancouver until he died. The furthest is one uncle who travelled lots, met and married an Australian and settled there with them.
I have one set of grandparents from Canada and one set from US. They have all been dead for at least 28 years.
There are 11 cousins total from my 8 aunts and uncles. (including step and adopted cousins).
AFAIK they are located
the US Virgin Islands (1) Have not seen her in over 35 years
New Jersey (1) Saw her 3 years ago
Maryland (1) Saw him about 13 yrs ago
Connecticut (1) Have not seen her in over 35 years
Vermont (2) (Saw one about 20 years ago, haven’t seen the other in 35+ yrs)
Illinois (1) He was adopted by my aunt’s 2nd husband. (We have never met)
British Columbia (4) saw these about 20 years ago
My maternal grandparents were both born in Nebraska. My paternal grandparents were born in Brooklyn and Detroit, respectively. All of them moved to California at some point, and the only one of my parents’ generation who wasn’t born in California was my mom’s oldest sister, who was born in Nebraska.
For awhile when I was a kid, my family was pretty spread out, with one of my aunts, her husband, and their kids in Mexico City and another aunt, her husband, and their kids in London, and the rest of us all in various parts of California, but as times passes we all seem to be getting closer together. At the moment, only one of my cousins is living overseas, for her husband’s job.
Right now, they’re in:
San Jose, CA
Orange County, CA (not sure what town)
Los Angeles
Portland, OR
Somewhere in New Jersey (again, forget what the specific town is)
Dubai
Orange County, CA
Sacramento, CA
??? This is my youngest cousin - he just graduated college and I have no idea what he’s up to right now. I’ll just say Orange County again because that’s where his parents are.
My family’s really nomadic, though. Just a few years ago this would have looked really different, when I was in Bulgaria and my cousin in San Jose was in Italy and my cousin in Dubai was in London. It’ll all probably be different again in another couple years.
There are four cousins in my generation of my family. We were all born and raised in New York through high school age. Now we live in four different states; New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Florida.
My cousins on my mother’s side are either in their home town, a town about an hour away, or in London (three hours away.) The nearest one lives about a ten minute walk from her mother’s house. My mother lives two streets away from that cousin and a ten minute walk from her siblings houses.
My brother lives in Wales, about four hours drive away and I’m in Japan, the furthest away of the lot.
The cousins on my father’s side live between ten minutes and three hours drive away.
This was an interesting question. My family is surprisingly UNspread!
All my grandparents were born in the US. My mom’s dad was born in and lives in NY. Her mom was born in and lives in OH. Both my father’s parents were born in MA. My grandmother is still here and my grandfather is buried here.
My cousins:
Two were born in OH and live in NY.
Five were born in CT and live in CT (4) and FL (1) - thanks to this thread, I now know why my uncle ended up in CT in the first place. Apparently he was in the Navy. I’m 30 years old and I didn’t know he was ever in the Navy.
anyway
Seven were born in MA and still live in MA.
For my sisters and I:
One was born in GA and lives in NY.
The other was born in MA and lives in GA.
I was born in MA and live in MA and will probably die in MA. I love this state. I really hated NY.
Out of 16 in my generation, both sides, all but 13 are from New Mexico, and 3 are from Texas, but went to highschool in New Mexico.
Last I heard, 6 are living in New Mexico now.
4 are in Arizona.
1 in Alaska.
1 in Virginia
1 is career military and he’s in Afganistan, but his family is stationed in New York currently.
1 is in Washington State
1 of them, I’m not sure anyone knows for sure where he is, but he checks in every couple years.
And I’m in Nevada.