FSM bless the information superhighway!
I have recently been very fortunate to be reunited with my huge extended family overseas.
Thanks to the internet (more importantly facebook!) I was found by one of my cousins and am now in regular contact with a huge array of rellies that I haven't seen since I was 12 or so.
It amazes me how much I have in common with these guys, genetics aside, we have grown up on completely differant continents and had virtually no contact but I find myself giggling at their status updates, marvelling over their photos and suprising myself with the values and ideas I seem to share with many of them.
I guess this must be a little bit like what an adopted child feels when they meet their birth families for the first time. Most of my cousins have grown up knowing each other, spending holidays and family events together while my brother and I were on the other side of the world, just us on our lonesome! We knew we had this huge tribe of people in the USA and England but didn't know them at all.
Now I just have to start saving (really really hard), I so want to get over there and meet them all and say Kia Ora Cuzzie! :p