I have relatives who are by now very distant in relationship and don't need a
genealogist to tell them they are related. All they have to do is look at a
wedding invitation. They would be insulted to be kicked out of a tree or a
wedding invitation. How I would get information on them is like anyone in the
family. When there are as I said settled conditions you can have two people
being the farthest distant cousins and it wouldn't make a difference. Jews have
unfortunately experienced too many unsettled conditions. I doubt Franklin Delano
Roosevelt wondered if he could call Eleanor Roosevelt his fifth cousin on a family
tree only, or a full fledged cousin to be invited to a family wedding
even before their own. I must say Nick that until you brought it up I thought I
was perhaps the only one on the planet to make a distinction between a family
tree relative and a "Relative." The problem is more trying to convince relatives
you really are a relative on a tree even. If not for the Holocaust a lot of
relatives would have known of each other's existence. I had so many relatives
living in Vienna, Austria before the war. It would have looked funny for them to
put a division between them. After the Holocaust you
had searches made for relatives. A failed attempt by a parent or grandparent
should mean the end of a search? Not for me. If information is out there you can
get it. How you use it online should be as discreet as you would want for your
nondiscovery needed family. One problem which had been in the Holocaust
generation that we may not have experienced directly but has caused also
genealogical ignorance was\is the phenomenon of children (by now parents and
grandparents themselves) being afraid to ask their parents about their family
too much for fear of causing them pain. This phenomenon probably was repeated
throughout Jewish history.

Yisrael Asper [Descendent of the Noda Byehuda, the Magen Avraham, the Pnei
Yehoshua, the daughter of the Yismach Moshe and a sister of Rav Meir Arak and
thus a descendent of the Taz and his fatherinlaw the Bach. My father's father
was a Gerer Chassid born and partially raised in London and later in Lodz who
was a Shochet and Bodek in Bnei Brak called Rav Yitzchak Yerachmiel Aspes. His
father was called Rav Shraga Feivel Aspes >from Lodz. Rav Shraga Feivel Aspes
was >from the family Ashpez. Either his wife or him had a sister married to a
Grunblatt who was the grandmother of Rabbi Joseph Grunblatt.]
yisraelasper@comcast.net
Pittsburgh PA