I love the internets.

That is seriously cool.

Yeah. I love stuff like that. I found a bunch of cousins right in my hometown that I didn't know I had... and one is a genealogist who's gone to Poland to do research on the family.

About 10 years ago, a distant Dutch cousin Googled (though I think this was before Google) our rare surname and found some magazine articles I'd written. He emailed me, I passed him on to my extended family, and since then they've all stayed in touch. He visited the family in the US, and some of them have been to the Netherlands to visit him. The Internets is cool for stuff like that.

But then there's the stalkerish guy who keeps tracking me down -- most recently through my Mecha Amazon wishlist, which has since been deleted. Ugh.

Sorry, mudpuppie. I thought you wanted the pop-up Kama Sutra.

Thanks to the internet, I've met (or corresponded with) a bunch of previously unknown cousins. There was some huge rift in my family a couple of generations back that I didn't know about as a kid, and it came as a complete surprise to me to find out that I don't come from such a tiny family after all. I was also pleased to find out that not only are there other people in my generation with my last name, but they are male - I had always thought I was the last of the folks with my very uncommon last name, and that I'd have to keep it when I got married so it wouldn't disappear entirely.

I am happy for you because I have a half brother and a half sister I have never met because I don't know where they are.

I just remembered! I helped a half brother find his half sister last year! He found her name (written by me looking for her) on our high school reunion board and contacted me for assistance. After several long, trying months I was able to track her down and give her her half-brother's contact information. Luckily, she was happy about it and now her new son will be able to have another uncle!

Sorry, mudpuppie. I thought you wanted the pop-up Kama Sutra.

No, Flo. It was the scratch and sniff version.

My name is common enough that awesome surprises like that will never happen to me. GOML--let's pretend it's me! How old are you? I always wanted an older sibling.

38, 39 in October.

If anyone knows a girl born in Indiana in ~1971, in her mid 30's, whose birth name is Jennifer Jane, please let me know. I know about my brother and he can stay in what ever prison he's in this year.

My name is really common, especially in the UK, so I'm afraid anyone googling me is more likely to find the English professor, photographer, or aspiring actress.

There seems to be some weird thing with my surname - I've had a couple of people contact me via Flickr with the same surname and someone has set up a Facebook group that has, er *checks* 34 members from the UK, America and Australia in it. Is this normal?

Geez, GOML, I'm pretty sure everyone born in 1971 was named Jennifer. Except me. I do have kin in Indiana, though.

I would be honored to have you as my surrogate sister jrossi4r.

TPS, that is very cool. I have a family history that was done in the late 1800's that I cherish. It's really neat to find family branches you don't know about.

Sweet! Look out world!

Very cool TPS. My surname is very unique also. Our family did a little searching and we found a big bunch of them in a town in Illinois.

Wait, is this thread the antonym of this thread? Or just the antidote?

As I've mentioned in the blue a couple of times, I know my last name's (Hartung) patrilineal line back to the 18th century, one or two generations before immigration from a couple of small towns in Germany near Frankfurt. I also know my mother's family (Björklund) four generations back and I've been to Sweden to meet some of my cousins. (It took me two days before my great-aunt insisted I was speaking Swedish like a native. Not that I've kept it up.) I also know that I have ancestors named Penn who lived in a Quaker community in Ohio named after William Penn and before that, in the same community as known cousins of Penn (who had no descendants by that name, himself), but nobody's quite put the links together. (Just as well, if not -- some of those Penns owned slaves.) Eventually I want to trace all the matrilineal lines up and then back down.

(I have a friend who thinks all this is complete and utter horseshit, right up to and including owning cute Swedish memorabilia like a Dala horse or a pin that says "Uff da!")

It's a shame because I don't really have a relationship with my cousins on either side for various reasons.

"Uff da!" is Norwegian/Swedish for Hurf Durf?

I am the lost grand-daughter of the lost last (blah) princess of Russia. The one who escaped family execution because her bolshevik horse-trainer and lover smuggled her out of the country and into hollywood where she played in a famous movie by a wicked director and sung beautifully a mysterious fabric of lush texture.

Or maybe I am confusing something. Es okay, it's the internets.

That is cool TPS, finding long lost relatives. For sure.

Funnier still is googling my own name to find out I've died. Or the felon.

My goalie stats for numerous men's league teams is funny.
I asked the one with the felon point to please delete it, it 'aint me. They actually did. Gone.