What skeletons are in your family closet?

My great grandmother spent some time in prison during 1939. The Spanish Civil War had just ended, and Franco’s security forces began to eliminate or punish all their enemies. Word got out that my great grandmother was a communist, no less - we suspect that her neighbour and long-time rival was the one to rat her out. So she was sent to prison without a trial, leaving my 15-year-old grandmother to care for her 4 siblings and her father. Unfortunately, we have very few exact details about this because the memories are too painful for my grandmother to discuss.

We suspect that my grandmother had an abortion sometime during the 1950s. No big deal in most places, but absolutely illegal in Francoist Spain. Once again, few exact details due to the painful memories.

I have a Roman Catholic priest uncle who was accused of molesting a girl in the 70s. There was a settlement and the case was dropped without the validity of the allegations being established. It’s not clear that the allegations were true, but his character is such that we’re not exactly thinking, “oh, that can’t possibly be true”.

Fair enough! The only one I’m aware of is that a second cousin (or cousin once removed? not positive how that works) is serving a jail sentence for child molestation and possession of child pornography.

Count the number of generations above parents until there is common ancestry.* That’s how many cousins you are apart (grandparents = 1 generation above parents = first cousins). If the number is different for the different people (2 for one, 3 for the other), the difference is how many removed (once removed, in the 2/3 example).
*If your parents are your common ancestors, you aren’t cousins, you’re siblings. :slight_smile:

Similar to FairyChatMom’s relative, my father’s oldest sister got pregnant sans husband in the early fifties, and almost certainly didn’t marry my oldest cousin’s father. (My aunt and uncle were married for more than fifty years, and had three younger children. The oldest cousin looks nothing like my uncle - the rest definitely bear a strong resemblance - and looks nothing like my father’s side if the family.) What makes this a great story, to me: My aunt was seeing an older, divorced man, and my Grandpa didn’t like that one bit. He somehow managed to get that divorced man locked up. Then my aunt turned out to be pregnant, so Grandpa had to bail the boyfriend out of jail for a wedding. Apparently the wrong boyfriend, though!

My great-grandmother had a child out of wedlock, too, in the late 19-teens in very rural south Georgia. As far as I know, she never named the father, but later married my great-grandfather, who raised Granny’s oldest daughter like one of his own. We may finally have some notion of whom the father might have been, thanks to some dredged-up family memories, but we’ll never know for sure.

Similarly, that grandmother’s mother was sort of a foundling. Her father had a job that involved traveling, and apparently had at least one girlfriend on the side. The girlfriend got pregnant and had a baby, and apparently raised her for a couple of years. Circumstances changed - maybe the girlfriend got sick, maybe she had a chance to marry advantageously? - but when she could no longer care for the child, she literally dropped the toddler off to play in her father’s yard with her half-siblings. I suspect that my great-great-great grandfather’s wife must have been a saint (and my grandmother confirms that she was a very nice lady,) because that woman raised her husband’s illegitimate child as though she were no different from the rest of the pack. (I did recently solve a tiny smidge of the mystery surrounding my great-great Grandmother. In the 1870 census, her last name is listed as Collins, although by the 1880 census she was listed as Mary McDonald - her father’s surname. Maybe one day I’ll be able to figure out whom her mother might have been.)

My maternal grandfather’s mother had a sister who ran a boarding house in Savannah, Georgia in the twenties and thirties. Apparently, Aunt Sadie also had a husband with a temper, and a drinking problem. The official story is that Aunt Sadie was cooking dinner one midday when she heard a loud noise, and rushed out to the hallway to find her husband shot by an unknown assailant, who was never discovered. The unofficial story is that one of the sons probably killed him. (Random: a few years ago, my mother was talking to my grandmother about one of her colleagues who owned another small taxicab company in Savannah. Mom referred to him by his nickname, but then corrected herself to his given name - which is a little unusual. Grandmother immediately asked “That’s not one of our [John Does], is it?” Ma went back to work the following week, and asked the other cabbie what his grandmother’s name was. “Sadie.” Well, hello cuz!)

The biggest “scandal” I’ve uncovered personally was while doing genealogy research on my mother’s mother’s father’s side of the family. My great-grandfather died when my grandmother was only 2, and she had always assumed, based on his last name, that his family were connected to the Salzburgers who were colonial emigrants to Georgia. What I found, though, (aside from the fact that those folks apparently thought that all Boy Children should be named John/Johannes,) was that those Germans had made it to Georgia no earlier than the late seventeen-nineties, by way of New York. And the John G who was born in New York in 1795, moved south to Georgia no later than 1816. His marriage certificate is from that year, and his wife is listed on the certificate as “mulatto.” Grandmother has spent my entire life denigrating my father’s family as being low-class, and always voiced suspicion about there being “something in the woodpile, if you know what I mean.” I really, really enjoyed breaking that one to Grandmother! (The funniest bit was when she tried to explain to me that “mulatto” was often used to describe someone with a Native American parent… Um, no. Also, don’t you remember telling me about having a DNA test that confirms that you have no Native ancestry?) (Second random bit: There is definitely fairly recent African ancestry on my father’s side of the family, too - most likely due to a Seminole great-grandmother. But no one of that side of the family even acted like it was scandalous. Which is the only reason that I enjoyed tweaking my Grandmother’s nose about her own black grandmother.)

Finally: I’m descended on one side of the family from a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and on another side from someone who murdered a signer. (Lachlan MacIntosh killed Button Gwinnett in a duel.)

I’m having a hard time buying that you were very close to your great-grandmother. Unless everyone in your family tree was having kids at 15.

Here’s a little math: Great-grandmother has child at the reasonable age of 20. Grandmother has child at 20. Mother gets college education before getting married, has child at 25. A woman who is alive at age 65, to meet her great-grandchild, stands a pretty decent chance of living to the age of 90, when that grandchild would be 25. Living to 95 isn’t unheard-of, and a 30-year-old descendant would likely take an active caretaking role, probably hearing some details that would lead a reasonable person to assume past abuse. (Especially if, like many older people, dementia or other cognitive changes cause the elderly ancestor to lose a lot of social “filters” and discuss things she might not have talked about previously.)

Heck, I was almost the youngest of my Granny’s great-grandchildren, and Granny didn’t have her first child until age 30, and I was still age 10 at Granny’s death (she was 91.) I was lucky enough to be close to my great-grandmother, albeit not of an age to discuss or understand grown-up stuff.

Well, it doesn’t matter if you buy it because it was true. My great-grandmother lived from 1901 - 1988. I was born in 1973. Her house was right next to my junior high/high school and I went over there every day both before and after school for years. Does that make more sense now?

In what world is having great-grandparents that are close to their grandchildren a completely foreign concept? I knew one of my other great-grandmothers very well too although she was much older (1884 - 1978) and died when I was young.

Fine. A distant relative was hanged/legally-lynched as 1 of the 5 Molly Maguires the mine owners wanted to be rid of.

Just prior to her passing, my grandmother told my mom that she’d been married before she married my mom’s father. Grandmother was worried it would be whispered about at her funeral since her sister was living. She wanted to be the one to tell her daughter. Mom didn’t ask to know details except that there were no children, and it was kept secret to prevent shaming her parents or mom’s father. The only relatives who knew have now passed. I’ve wondered what could cause so much shame. Was he a criminal? We’re they underage? Failed pregnancy? Did he die or something? We’ll never know. I tried to research records but can’t find any mention of it. Was strange to learn something that major about someone I thought I knew everything about! I wish she hadn’t died feeling shame. We didn’t think less of her.

My grandfather cheated, got not 1, but 2 women pregnant. He left grandmother with several young children and married the 2nd mistress. No one was aware of the 1st one until he confessed to my mom a few years ago. Now she’s got yet another half sister who was also abandoned. Dirtbag.

My other grandparents were step siblings. Not blood related, but still scandalous back then!

I traced my great x4 grandfather back to an area that was sparsely populated and found an article stating most were smugglers there at that time. Smugglers of what, I don’t know. Or maybe he was just a farmer.

Right now, I probably am my family’s skeleton. Yikes!

The sister of one of my ancestors married a Hatfield. Grab yer gun!

My mother’s cousin had a child out of wedlock in the 1920s in Oklahoma.

My cousin’s first husband built a mud floor, no electricity, log cabin in the woods in northern California. When she decided she didn’t like living there any more, he told her that if she left him he would kill her and all of her family. She left him anyway, and he never followed through on the threat.

A couple of years ago, my wife discovered that she had a cousin who was serving a life sentence in Arizona for murdering her parents. News reports made it pretty clear that she had a long history of mental illness. She is/was something of a poster child for anti-medication folks.

Arizona publishes lots of information on-line about the doin’s of their “guests”. We could see all about the jobs she held and details about rule infractions and penalties. One day, we checked her situation and a note said she had been found dead in her cell. :frowning:

My paternal Grandfather’s Mother became a prominent merchant in her little corner of Aberdeenshire. She bore my GF out of wedlock in 1860 and raised him with the help of her parents. In 1868, she had another son by a local farmer. All apparently above board and well documented. (but never acknowledged by the family, to my knowledge)

When my mother got into genealogy, her mother tried to discourage her from contacting relatives. “You don’t want to meet them. They are just poor white trash.” Mom contacted said relatives, and discovered that many of them owned oil wells and thousand-acre ranches. It turns out, WE are the poor relations.

And Grandma’s sainted father turns out to be the instigator of one of the jucier sex scandals in the family history. His wife was mortally ill. Her sister stayed with them for several months, to help take care of her. The wife died. The sister turned up pregnant. A shotgun wedding was arranged. At the last moment, he escaped and left town with a third woman. I am afraid to ask which of the three I am descended from.

An ancestor of my father is much more mysterious. About the only mark he left on the historical record was being acquitted on charges of horse theft. Several times.

My maternal great-grandmother lived until she was 99. I knew her better than I knew my maternal grandmother, her daughter. And no, they didn’t have children when they were under 18.

My skeletons are relatively recent. I have to get back on ancestry.com

My mother was repeatedly molested by her own father. Come to find out, he had molested her older sister and maybe her brother as well. When my mom fought to get him prosecuted, she was treated as the bad guy. :confused: We are estranged from that whole side of the family.

My mother and father briefly distributed marijuana. Hey, it was the late 60s/early 70s. She did try marijuana but didn’t like it. My father liked it so much he went on to other drugs and ended up pretty much ruining his life.

My stepfather was an alcoholic who often beat my mother in front of me and their toddler-aged son. At one point in time she said that I actually saw him rape her, but in recent years she has said that was not true.

My brother was 9 years old when he broke into an abandoned factory with his friends. He was brought home by police. 5-6 years later, he derailed a cargo train, and the FBI showed up at our house. If I hadn’t been so busy studying (I was in college) I probably would have been more freaked-out. :eek:

A couple years ago I found out I had an additional brother through my father. He was over 15 years younger than me. We corresponded for a few months. He had a 5-year-old daughter and a rather trashy wife. He kept pushing for us to meet, talk on the phone, etc.

I got a weird feeling. So I looked him up on one of those background-check websites. Turns out he was a convicted sex offender. A child molester. And it wasn’t long ago, it was in the last 2-3 years. No idea if it was his own child or not. Disgusting. :frowning: Yeah, I cut off contact with him after that.

This is so depressing more than salacious… I’m sorry guys.

On the bright side, when I was on ancestry.com, I did find a “Sir” in my background. Way, way back as to make no difference. And I found out that I am likely more German than I’d thought. My last name should have tipped me off. :smack:

My side of the family - ehh, just a couple of small slaveholders in antebellum North Carolina.

My wife’s family, on the other hand - her maiden name was Booth. Yep - THAT Booth. Some sort of great to the nth uncle I think.

One of my uncles shot - and nearly killed - another uncle. The first was 10 years old, and used the gun that the other (an adult) had just handed him.

And I just found out a few years ago that my grandmother committed identity theft back in the 50s.

It sounds like your brother is/was a serial killer? Or am I misunderstanding/misreading that?

I discovered an aunt is listed on the 1940 Census as having a female partner. In a completely different profession.

Had no clue about this woman and the aunt died a couple of years ago.

…so maybe this is more of a brag (not even stealthy).

My bloodline goes back to the Satsuma clan. Lots of great achievements, but three are so famous they have the family name attached: Satsuma pears, Satsuma oranges, and the (failed) Satsuma Rebellion* (q.v.). The end result was that the reigns of power shifted back to the Emperor, but a lot of blood had to be spilled to convince the hold-outs that it was the right thing to do. Although that historical chapter is something of a misnomer associated with a geographical region, many of the participants were Satsuma clan members who were killing each other and the moniker that persists in the history books puts something of a stain on the clan’s name. A Western equivalent would be like having a bunch of related families in the USA with “Civil” as a surname and people today saying, “Oh! You’re those guys related to that Civil War thing, right?”

—G
History is written by the victors
…–Attributed to Winston Churchil; source unknown

*In a nutshell: the modernization of Japan meant a decline in power, prestige, and provisions for the samurai. The Satsuma rebels were the last hold-outs until government troops stomped out the rebellion.