# Family Secrets That Ain't No Surprise **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 2, 2006, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828 "2006-03-02T22:30:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/121 "2006-03-04T14:30:17Z")
[hijack] > [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Thanks for reminding me. I’m 1/16 Cherokee or Lumbee from dad’s side. I don’t know which because of the reason you mention. It is still “impolite” to mention that someone has native American in their family tree in the small NC town dad is from. Hmmm - is he from Lumberton, perchance? ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/122 "2006-03-04T15:00:32Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > **Anastasaeon** - would the Irish lady Pirate be [Granuaile](http://www.legends.dm.net/pirates/grainne.html)? > That would be cool. > > [This](http://www.heraldry.ws/html/malley.html) is the O’Malley crest anyway. Granuaile, Grace O’Malley, that be she. My mother’s maiden name is O’Malley. I don’t know a whole lot about the pirate lady, just the name, and I don’t know much about our history before her, either. We’ve only just gotten as _far_ as her. 😉 Being the kids and grandkids of Irish immigrants, we knew only for a long time that we come from County Mayo. I just called my mom and asked her what that writing was on the banner in the crest, and she had to spell it out for me, but it says: Terra Marique Potens. I don’t know what that means. :o Anyway, that one isn’t too old, as it belonged to my great-grandfather, and I think he had it made when he came over. I guess there are a bunch of other trinkets he brought with him that helped make the connection, as well as some research I had been doing on the county tartan that I sent to my mother that tipped someone off somewhere along the line. I had sent some other information about our family name, too, so that was probably part of it. Anyway, it was all pretty cool. I _do_ like pirates more than ninjas. 😉 My poor mother is not nearly as impressed. She’d had it in her head that some famous bishop was in our genes. Nooooooope. There’s not a damn thing holy about us! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gardentraveler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gardentraveler/32/3576_2.png) [@gardentraveler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gardentraveler)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/123 "2006-03-04T15:34:36Z")
Well, _I’m_ feeling slow on the uptake. I have a mid-November birthday and only figured out what this means because I’ve read this thread. One of my grandpas had two kids with grandma’s first cousin (not sure when grandma found out; she died before I found out about the extra aunt and uncle). Grandma’s two youngest are in the same age range as the extras; I’m guessing they were guilt kids, cuz they’re _way_ younger than their older sibs. GT ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/124 "2006-03-04T15:39:01Z")
There’s some actual inbreeding that went on/apparently continues to go on in one of the branches of my mom’s family tree. When I started researching our genealogy a few years ago my mom decided it was time to tell, but I had to point out that 2 seconds of ‘hi, how are you?’ with a few of them would tip off a toddler. ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/125 "2006-03-04T16:20:27Z")
> [@Oy!](#): > > I suspect that “It was the milkman” will outlive actual milkmen in this country for many decades if not centuries. Think of how many otherwise obscure words, expressions, or concepts are widely used in idioms. > > But then, I’m almost 50, so maybe I’m just dated too… I was going to say that I’ve heard “It was the Mailman” a lot more in my 32 years, but now, they’re “Mail Carriers” to be politically correct, and not necessarily men. Milkmen (like the Iceman and the Telegram boy) became obsolete before there was ever much of a chance for there to be a female “milk carrier”. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/126 "2006-03-04T16:23:06Z")
There is some suspicion that my maternal grandfather had a secret family on the side—another “wife”, kids, the whole shebang. My MIL’s mother left her family when MIL was quite small, and started a whole 'nother family. Did I mention that my mother and my MIL grew up in the same city? I did some quick checking and thinking and what-have-you and, no, I’m not related to my husband by secret marriage! ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/127 "2006-03-04T17:26:15Z")
Let’s see, **Anastasaeon** , an O’Malley from Mayo…yup you’d more or less have to be related to Grace O’Malley, even if it was only distantly…hell, my university has just [discovered](http://www.oxfordancestors.com/service_kings.html) that 1 in 4 men in some parts of Ireland might be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/128 "2006-03-04T17:35:03Z")
I have a cousin who is gay, and I’ve known it for many years, but the rest of the extended family didn’t know until my grandmother’s funeral last summer. It was kinda fun watching the lights go on in their small minds… ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/129 "2006-03-04T18:19:51Z")
“Powerful by Land or Sea” is what it means. She’s always been one of my favorite historical figures. A truely confident person, who interviewed with the Queen of England as equals. She was more than a pirate, she was a chieftan in her own right. Her story is the kind that’d make a hell of a movie, if certain bits involving her age were altered. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/grace.html](http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/grace.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/130 "2006-03-04T18:28:25Z")
My god, my family is so boring compared to all of y’alls’. The only secret I’m still confused about is where my great-grandfather (my mom’s mom’s father) is from. My mom, if you ask her, will tell you she is of Irish descent, but once when I asked my grandma about her father, she said vaguely that he was from England or Germany. Completely out of the blue, as far as I had known up til then, my mom’s family was entirely Irish. Someone somewhere probably knows more, but it isn’t my mom or her sisters. When I was a kid, I was intrigued by my paternal grandfather, because he died before I was born. And my dad _never_ talks about him. Totally mysterious. I finally got my dad to tell me about him when I was in high school - turns out he was a terrible parent and my dad basically doesn’t miss him too much. My bubbe doesn’t come off very well in his stories, either. In fact, my dad’s family is so dysfunctional I don’t even know who they all are. My dad vaguely remembers playing with his cousins when he was a kid, but can’t even remember their names now. Really big contrast to my mom’s family, which is chock full of second cousins and great aunts and lord knows what. ---
**Author:** ![Susie\_Derkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@Susie\_Derkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susie_Derkins)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/131 "2006-03-04T19:18:48Z")
My grandfather, who had nine children with my grandmother, also fathered a son with another woman. This happened in the fifties in a town that _still_ has a population of under 4,000 so I find it amazing that she not only gave birth to a married man’s baby (out of wedlock with no pretense about it at all), but also gave her son my grandfather’s (highly Polish, highly unusual) last name. This was such a non-secret in that town that one of my high school teachers brought back a rubbing of his name she took when she visited the Vietnam Memorial and gave it to me to give to my mother. Of course, that was how _I_ found out about him, but everyone else already knew. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/132 "2006-03-04T19:18:52Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > Hallowe’en [conception] gives you [a birthday of] 7th June. Make that 7th of August. This one caught my eye because I’ve long joked that my folks got right down to business, as I was born (May 31) 9 months and 11 days after their marriage (August 20). Then my mom had to go and wreck it by telling me that I could have been a little older. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/133 "2006-03-04T21:06:03Z")
> [@Honey](#): > > Aannd I just realized how I’ve dated myself by using the term “milkman”. You’ve dated yourself? That’s a heck of a family secret! 🙂 If my family has any secrets, they’re doing too good a job with them. And I have a ginormous family, so I think we’re all just freakishly boring. One of my ancestors killed his brother’s wife over a cow, causing that half of the family to add a letter to the family name. That’s all I’ve got, unless I’m forgetting something obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/134 "2006-03-04T21:35:23Z")
My Uncle told me this story at home. My Mother’s Father was a terrible bastard. Sheet metal worker, big as a house, loved to fight. Drank a lot, beat his kids etc. My Mother left school at 12 to raise her siblings as her Mother died suddenly . Real miserable, north-side of Dublin stuff. I only learned recently that my parents married at 18 to get her out of the house (not that they aren’t happily married). My Mam’s Dad was very against it and pretty much expressed that physically. On the night before their weddig, my very quiet, mild, pleasant and small (5’5) Father went to the house of his soon to be Father-in-law and beat him into the hospital. Dragged him from the house and battered him across Kilester Avenue. Evidently it was sort of like the scene in the Godfather where Sonny beats up his brother-in-law. Evidently my Dad was extremely calm, never raised his voice, never swore he just beat him. My Uncle says it was one the scariest things he had ever seen (and this guy is in and out of prison). He was in the hospital for more than a week. The Gardai didn’t arrest my Dad because no one “saw him do it” (the whole street saw it) and my Grandfather didn’t press charges. I’ve never seen my Father lose the rag and I never thought he had it in him. Big family secret though and I think there’s more to it but it still sort of shocks me. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/135 "2006-03-04T21:36:31Z")
:smack: He told me when I was at home for Christmas (2005/2006). ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/136 "2006-03-04T22:02:07Z")
My mother is a genealogy nut, er buff. But she cannot trace her mother’s family past her great grandfather. Apparently, he just showed up in Kentucky one day and changed his name to Jones and that was that. He never told anyone what his real name was (no, I don’t know how she knows that wasn’t his real name). Re the blue eyes: I have a friend with brown eyes and her husband has blue. They have 4 daughters–3 have brown eyes and one has blue (it works!). My mother has hazel, my father blue. I have blue ( my parents had 5 kids, 3 blues and 2 browns). My husband has no color eyes–not quite blue, or gray or green–I can’t describe them. We have 3 kids: one blue, one greenish blue and one gray. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2006, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/137 "2006-03-04T22:07:58Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > I found out recently that one of my friends is the product of a green-card marriage that lasted four years. Didn’t sound like it was a secret to him for long, but it was surprising to me; why would you marry someone for citizenship and then have a kid with them? I guess I could see where she had to “put out” to get her green card, and they had an accident, or something; still sounds unique, or at least something I haven’t heard of. Not to rain on your parade … however do you know for a fact she was sleeping with the green card hubby, and _didn’t_ have her own lover … just because she put his name on the birth cert doesn’t mean he was the actual father. It is pretty common to put the hubby’s name on the cert unless mom says otherwise. The hospital pretty much lets the woman fill in the blanks… ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/138 "2006-03-05T00:43:13Z")
I found out my dad’s oldest sister was pregnant by one man when she married my uncle. It was a big scandal back in the 40s - I’m not sure why my mother told me one day. Guess she can’t keep a secret. I have a nephew I’ve never met (a sister’s high school indescretion who was given up for adoption) - my mom doesn’t talk about him - she does the denial thing really well. One other thing - not exactly a family secret but a little scandal from my childhood: a neighbor died - hanged in his basement. Word went around the neighborhood that he’d committed suicide. It surprised me, even at my young age (maybe young teens), because he didn’t seem suicidal. Well, my mom was talking to another neighbor whose husband was a cop. Turns out it wasn’t suicide - it was autoerotic asphyxiation. She just told me this a few months ago. I think she was a bit appalled that I knew what it was. :eek: Um, I’m over 50 - I’ve heard stuff over the years… If we have any other family scandals, they’re well hidden. No gay aunts that I’m aware of. In fact, only two aunts left, both quite old and ill. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/139 "2006-03-05T01:51:13Z")
Oh, and there was also the time my mom held my sister and I hostage in the kitchen at knifepoint for hours and threatened to kill us. We don’t often bring that up around the Thanksgiving table, as you can well imagine. (heck, not with all those knives there!) ---
**Author:** ![sj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@sj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sj2)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2006, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828/140 "2006-03-05T01:57:22Z")
3 kids in my family were born in December…and there was a joke about “green beer” helping my mom get pregnant for a long, long time. The other was a “champagne” baby born in late October… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/family-secrets-that-aint-no-surprise/346828.md?page=8)