And this ‘new’ 3rd cousin has 5 siblings and mentioned 1 cousin of hers. They have descendants too. And a cousin in SoCal is excited too! More family now 🙂
I’m not clear on many aspects of these ‘lost’ relatives. I have them listed on two family trees written by different people in 1955. But at this point I don’t understand the rather complete disconnect of us knowing about the other. I suspect that people just got busy living their lives. My father died when I was in my 20’s, and I moved away from home to establish my own life. I did not realize at that age how important family connections are.
I do know that while I grew up in the Chicago area we often had people over for dinner or parties. I called them all aunt or uncle or some other term of kinship. As I grew older and long forgot the exact relationship, I thought of these people as friends or even business partners of my parents, and really did not realize that most of them were indeed relatives.
What did I hear after contacting one of the descendants of a ‘lost’ great uncle? AWESOME!!!!!
A descendent of Jewish immigrants, 
It seems a simple question to ask where an ancestor’s birthplace was. But to trace ancestral records from many countries of origin could require some political boundary investigations. Adding to that, language or pronunciation changes occurred along with varying political boundaries. This gives us a multi-threaded map to unravel.