This is the sort of thing people mean when they ask “what kind of reunion , people who know each other or based on having the same name”. There are 10-12 generations between 1722 and now, and there will probably be a couple of thousand ancestors by the 12th generation and and over a million cousins. There would be more, but there is likely to be some pedigree collapse. There’s there’s a huge difference between inviting everyone descended from my tenth great grandparents (most of whom I don’t know ) and everyone descended from my great-grandparents , where I know everyone up to the my generation and most of those in the next generation.
Odd, coincidence - my son is going to Sicily at the end of the month.He’s going there with a friend who grew up in the same town my family is from. It’s a small town by my standards and there’s a good chance they’re distant cousins - if they are ever able to trace the families back far (and wide) enough.
Just for fun, I mapped all of my relatives in the records of my ancestral small town in Italy going back to 1809. I figured out that when my grandmother was a child, I could trace her relationship to about a third of the village (but no pedigree collapse). Add the data from the last 100 years and I’m sure it would be almost everyone.
Our US family tree started in the early 1900s - the root relatives never left Poland.
There’s not many of us left who know each other. My mom, at 92, is the last of her generation. I have 4 siblings and we have 8 surviving cousins, ages 83 to 58. There’s almost no interaction among the children of the cousins because we’re all over the country and there’s really been no reason to try to gather everyone together.
Last month, my mom hosted a Christmas in July party that was mainly the cousins from my dad’s side of the family, and one child of a cousin and her 2 boys. There was no particular bonding among the kids/grandkids of cousins and I doubt we’ll ever get together again. Maybe most of the remaining cousins of my generation will gather when my mom dies, but after that, at most we’ll stay in touch via Facebook.
On Mom’s side, there are 2 or 3 of her cousins still alive and only 2 of the next generation down. I have no idea how many kids of cousins there are. Apart from FB contacts, we no longer have any connection. Not that there were any disagreements - just that since my mom’s parents died in the mid-90s (decade, not age) everyone has gone their own way.
My husband’s side is even less connected. All of his parents’ siblings stayed in the Indianapolis area and frequently got together, but his dad’s work took him out of Indiana, and that tie was mostly broken. FCD hasn’t seen some of his cousins since he was a pre-teen. Again, not animosity, just life.