For example, this is a picture of part of my family members. There's my mom in the middle, my second elder brother on the right, my fourth elder brother on the left and his 1 year old son.
(BTW, my second elder brother has grown so old he looks a lot like my late father when he was in his 50s).
Looking at family pictures is simple, describing those in the pictures is also fairly easy. But when I was invited by my husband's cousin to expand our family trees, man ... it was like doing arithmetic questions followed by some anatomy study.
You see, my late maternal grandmother married 4 times (to 4 different men, of course). She had 4 children, all from different fathers. I was quite ashamed to realize that I have no idea what her third husband's name was. I also don't know the name of my grandfather's father (my moyang). I know my cousins quite well but I don't exactly know their full names.
The thing is, I was not the kind of person who enjoys going to family gatherings, weddings or khenduris. Even during raya, I didn't make an effort to visit all of my relatives for the following reasons:
1. it seemed to me everybody in the kampung is related somehow or rather. So, mana larat nak visit all of them, kan?
2. i never really took a holiday long enough for me to make rounds during raya.
3. when our elderlies introduced us to our relatives, they always used kata ganti nama diri ke lapan belas such as 'your Mak Ngah', 'your Embong', 'your Cha'abang', 'your Kak De'. The full names were always omitted. When it comes to introducing their spouses, it's worse, they'd use 'your Mak Ngah's cousin's hubby' or 'your Kak De's great aunt's uncle's wife'. Now, how was I going to register all those in my not-so-photographic memory?
This is the screen shot of the application I used. It's quite interesting. Maybe you should start your own family tree one of these days and challenge yourself on how many close relatives' names you can spell correctly. 
7 comments:
heheh.. nanti apart from facebooking and blogging, you'll be addicted to Geni-ing pulak..
btw, selamat hari raya sis ;-)
dee... i pun tgh terkedek2 nak start geni.com ni. my uncle sent invitation then ntah mcmana i screwed it up pasal tak mergekan my profile.. hampeh..
cam best kannn!
software ni belum try lagik, yg pernah try tu nama dia family tree yek.. muahah.. nama ada beradik ngan anak sedara jelah ingat.. luar dr tu, confirm ler tak tau
wah..template baru..nice..selamat hari raya..:)
Didie,
Geni-ing tu perkataang Ganu ke? Kekeke.
Eyna,
memang best masa awal-awal tu. Tapi bila sampai part nak letak info pakcik2 ngan sepupu2, terus mind blocked.
Mummy Darin,
nama adik beradik pun selalu salah eja.
Maya,
Selamat Hari Raya to you too! Saya tukar template setahun dua kali je.
Dear DNAS
Salam perkenalan. My first time here. I know how the feeling of Geni is. Our family has started with the family thing too. Thanks to my auntie yang dah 50 yrs old yang sangatlah cyber savvy. It is growing by the day. Very interesting. For me, I do not get the chance to be addicted to it. However some of the family members who are addicted to it, really getting the hang of it. So almost every morning now I get the notification at my mail.
Keep "Geni-ing"
Hi tireless mom,
yes it's getting more interesting after I invited my brothers and niece to update more info. It thrills me to learn the names of cousins I never knew exist.
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