How many families are we related to by marriage ?

If we were to see the families that Theempalangad girls have been married into - that would be about 100. If we see the families from which women have come to Theempalangad family by way of marriage, that too would be about 100. Thus there would be about 200 families that are related to us, by way of marriages. There maybe more than one such affiliation or relationship with a number of families and that will reduce the number 200 to an even smaller number.

Many of the members of the family - actually all of us, have a second family we are associated and related to and Theempalangad family is related to - it is called our "Mother's family". In my case it is "Otaplackal" given my dad married my mother, from the Kadakuzha branch of the ottaplackal family, daughter of Mr and Mrs Thomas Mathew.

Every member of the family has a "mother's family" side to them, and it would be interesting to tabulate the relationships and to see who we are connected to by marriage, and thus geneticaly, for that is the make up of the family tree.

Likewise, my Dad's Mother's family is "Olessa" and that brings another relationship into the equation. My dad's brother married from "Plackad" and The sisters of my dad were married into "Thachenkerry" where 2 of them into different branches of the family was done. Also to "Marathinal" and "Karanthanum" families. Our grandfather's mother's family was "Kannanthanam" and one of our great grandfather's sister was married into "Kannanthanam" family. Of the many sisters my grandfather Koshy Geeverghese had, one of them was married into "Karipal" family. There are daughters of Theempalangad family married into families such as "Karippaparambil", "Kadanthode", and where our men have married from "Powathil" and "Thekkekara" families.

I would be amiss if I did not mention the Ferns and the Silas families here, as they too were connected to Theempalangad family by marriage, even if that has been ruptured due to the modern day trends unfortunate in some ways, yet a reality - the other side of marriage or after the marriage called divorce.

My own four sister have been married, respectively, beginning with the oldest to youngest, into these four following families, namely "Polachirackal" "Edassery", "Elamatha" and "Padinjattekara".

So in a brief synopsis, looking at merely the affiliations primarily formed by my grandfather and his wing of the family's affiliation, we see 20 families connected by marriage to the Theempalagad family. This list is not even complete even for my Grandparents wing f the family meaning none of the marriages of the children of T. V. Thomas, Dad's brother are mentioned here, and that is another 7 family affiliations. We will update the list as we get details of family names and further data.

Se how important this information is, and how little we know of each other's family ties.. so much to learn, so much to cherish.