Once you have the basic family tree skeleton assembled from the basic vital records research and/or the DNA research, a good family historian puts the flesh on those bones by personal interviews, diaries, archives and newspaper research. We are the products of both our genetics and our environment (which science has shown influence and effect each other). Our personal and family realities have been influenced by war, economic cycles, natural disasters including celestial events and what would appear to be random events. In my family, the Great Depression resulted in both my mother and father being separated from their families and locating to another major city because of the difficult economic circumstances of their families. I consider the family that raised my mother from 8th grade until her marriage (1932-1940) my third set of "annexed" grandparents and part of our family. She had been babysitting for that family since she was 8 years old. [The term "annexed" was the result of the discussion by their children when in high school as how to introduce her to their friends. She wasn't formally adopted and their parents made sure my mother stayed close with and got back to her family and her family members cold visit her as well. Her "annexed" brothers and sisters were all Aunts and Uncles and their children cousins when I was growing up. Because of proximity and economics we saw more of them than our natural born grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Everyone can decide the question personally but I accept both the biological reality and that of close affinity, whether legal adoption or not, based on the environmental circumstances that greatly influenced my sense of family. James Castellan Rose Valley, PA