Palfrey's life

At various points I've compared the numbers of relatives in my family to someone else's count. The usual measure of this (given the finite but massive possibilities if we find *everyone* related) is based on invites to a critical family event - wedding/funeral is the usual example. In discussions with my mother over the last few, I've come up with another: number that will be eventually invited to my PhD defense (insert usual provisos about "if I get there"), which eliminates anyone who can't do a plane flight without substantial medical risk. By that count, we're down to 4, 3 of which are my parents and my brother (the last is one of the grandparents). In order to increase that, I'd need to start talking to 2nd cousins or to people I'd describe as "n times removed" in one way or another.

Wow. I have a seriously small family (especially as I seem to remember finding at least a good dozen before, and we haven't eliminated *that* many on medical grounds).