I bet most of you like me as a boy, heard about skeletons in the closet, and wondered whose bones were in there. I never could find any. Not in our house, or at grandmas house, or even at aunties house. As I grew into a youngman, I did know there was trouble plenty in my families history, and there seemed to be no answers because everyone was apparently hiding something. After many of my elders were passed, and I myself had become older, and mostly when my wife was killed on 24 June 2006, I began to be determined to build our families combined histories for our children and children's children........I subscribed to Ancestry.com for a year and began the journey of family history discovery; it was a long and often exciting, yet also often depressing trip through historical documents. Often scant and vague and misleading, occasionally rich in before unknown to me specifics of who I am and who I am related to. I was finally able to see the truth of who my fathers side of the family was, making connections clear back to the beginning of the Revolutionary War. That was cool, and I now know for certain my family has been American from our historical beginning. But also along the way, I found obstacle after obstacle connecting pieces together on my mothers side whom I had thought I knew the most about. Instead I only discovered lie after lie, and deception at every turn. It really hurt to learn after connnecting document after document, that the real reason I never got to know my maternal grandfather is because he was a philanderer and molested his own daughter, my own mother in childhood. So finally all the questions of why she had such a problematic life, and was not a good wife to my father, was revealed at last. She had no more control of her adult life then the man in the moon. So sad she died a bag lady in a phone booth on Hollywood Blvd. She seems never to have known where to belong..........Of her six children that lived to adult hood, only two of us have our heads on fairly straight now. Of a dozen grandchildren, only five seem to be free of alcoholism or drug abuse. So far as I know, of twelve grt.grandchildren none are broken by abuse of our times and culture. The far flung effects of child abuse carry on sometimes for generations I have reluctanly learned the hard way and hard truth. Are these truths of family history neccessary to understand our forebears and or the problems of being humans?????I don't really know, and I am not sure I wish to tell the young ones. So I am hiding SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET............
Many families have "stuff". I found a pile of it when I started working on my family. Some of it was just sad, some of it was fabrication that I suspect was borne of the need to protect or keep from embarassing or any one of a number of things that make less sense today than they probably did in 1900 or 1850 or whenever it was.
When I write my notes on those unpleasant happenings, I couch them in the context of the times. I would think that if there was a disease that ran through the family, subsequent generations would want to know that. I, for one, think we're as sick as our secrets. But I also don't think there's a compelling reason to be cruel, ever. Talk about the people you knew and forgive their failings when you can; talk about the kind of world they came from and why they may have made the choices they did, given the society in which they came to adulthood. One need not apologize, but neither do I feel I can judge.
It's an interesting and thought provoking discussion you pose. I've ancestors who were suicides, who were murdered, who were involved in horrible illegal activities many years ago. But I have ancestors who were war heroes, and who worked hard and long for their families. And yea, a bunch of alcoholics, ne'er do wells and wanderers, as well. It's the same slice of humanity that every family has, if one digs deep enough.
Thanks so much for sharing this. It's gotten me thinking about that "stuff" again.
I have discovered the same thing thru my journey. SECRETS, SECRETS, SECRETS. Now that I am 59, I realize I have secrets too. Mine seem like I should keep them, for VERY good reasons, my family's secrets seem so silly to me (divorces, children out of wedlock, alcoholics, prison time, gay, religious differences, etc.) Those things aren't as important in 2008. I guess my reasons won't be important 100 years from now either. thx for this
I have the same problem. My aunt found out she was illegitimate when she applied for retirement and found no birth record. She lived out of state, so I asked a great aunt about a name I found on the census. I was told in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS “that I did not want to know about that. I new I had hit pay dirt. However, I could never find any more info on this name. Grandma got pregnant with this aunt when she was 16. Then 18 months later she finds out she pregnant AGAIN with out the having the ring. This time the baby’s daddy marries her. His family thought it was such a scandal that he married the neighbor slut that grandma and grandpa moved to the other side of town and changed their last name. Grandma did not change her wild ways. She admitted to nine abortions, which included two sets of twins. I have not figured out what grandma’s sister did but she was sent to a home for “bad girls”. Now if two illegitimate pregnancies do not get you in, I wonder what does.
I did find out who was my Aunt’s birth father. He was her stepfather’s brother-in-law’s sister’s husband. Oh Yeah try adding that to Family Tree’s database.
I do know that Grandma’s brother was in a reform school and three of her siblings were taken from their mother and put in a poor house. The children were released to Catholic priests and housed elsewhere but I have not found where or for how long.
Now we come to my mother’s side. My grandparents were each divorced twice. I have one picture of my grandfather because grandma destroyed the rest. She kept this one because “it was a good picture of Toodles, the dog”. I have one picture of my Great Great Grandmother and her children. I have searched for these kids forever! Only problem is one child is hers by her first marriage and the rest are stepchildren by two additional marriages. I have been looking for them under the wrong last name!
Yes, I have my secrets, too. Some will go to the grave with me! Let the next generation try to unravel them!!!!
OwnedBy, You win! I just want to see how the little boxes connect on the family tree chart!
I remember sitting in this tiny library, reading page after page of old newspapers looking for an obituary. All of a sudden on the front page, is this bold headline about how my g-grandmother's husband hung himself! I let out this yelp that sent the libararian over with a major shhhh! face.
Then there was the four year search for a great uncle. Found him in California, finally, and ordered his Will. Got 102 pages of a file that showed his sister (my great aunt) had been fighting for 20 years to get his money. Over that 20 years, the legal expenses brought the estate down to almost nothing, and all the relatives (including her) had died. The step-daughter of another sibling's late wife ended up getting the money! She was a nice enough lady, but not related to anyone in the family. Not so likely to happen in this day of FAX, email, etc., but back in the 1920s, the great aunt kept telling the Califoronia lawyers (incorrectly) that everyone was dead except her and to just send the money! Crazy letters.
And same great aunt tossing out my grandfather and his two young sons (my dad and uncle) on their ear a week after my grandmother's funeral so that she could sell the property. She'd owned it in partnership with my grandmother, and as gram was dying of cancer, she told my grandfather to not worory - she'd pay the bills. He should just take care of his wife' medical expenses. That's what he did, then when she died, auntie told him he owed her X for all she'd paid, and made him sign the house over. Then she evicted him! She was definitely a heckuva woman.
Old bones rattling. In another hundred years, they'll be OUR old bones, and someone will be wondering why we did what we did, what kinds of people we were. Hopefully, my footprint in the dust will be tidier than that of my great aunt.
I think knowing secrets sometimes helps us in knowing who we are but in being more understanding of others. When we can connect those things in the past that have made people we know the way they are it just makes sense and it enables us to see that we really are not in control of anything. What happens in our lives can make us into entirely different people then when we began.
Great post! No kidding eh? Who doesn't have skeleton's in the closet? There are plenty in my family, both maternal and paternal. It is shocking when you discover this, but so helpful in understanding the lives of those past, as you spoke of your mother; no wonder she made some of the choices she did. So, in understanding this, a question I have had from the beginning of my searches is this... do you expose all you know, all you have found, because ultimately it will help some, or do you...keep it in the closet as you say you are?
outside of the fact that my mothers father was just a cad all the way around there isn't too many secrets that i have found.
g-pa got his though when his second wife started fooling around with the sherrif, and ended up shooting g-pa. sherrif declared it a suicide and that was that. i always said good for you, margaret. lol
also on that side of the family, it appears that two of the geringer brothers got kicked out of the quaker church. they went on to be come methodist pastors. for some reason that just cracks me up.
Sammig I think I can top you Will/fighting Story. My Grandfather died in Dec and was buried in April. He was kept on ice because there were next of kin and an estate. My mother and her brother fought over the estate. My mother thought that the Aunt she hated had taken her brother to the bank and got an envelope filled with money. The envelope was marked with her father's girlfriends name. They were living together. When the box was legally opened the envelope was found. What they were fighting for was who got the bank account or at least a larger percentage. My mother thought as oldest she should. The Aunt and brother thought he should as he was the only son. The court decided after the bills were paid and my grandfather was buried as cheap as possible to dived the remainder. My mother won. She got 1 penny more than her brother. She got $456.31 and He got $456.30.
As far as devulging the secrets you find depends on the secret and who it helps or hurts. I devulged the secret of my aunt because all concern parties were dead. It harmed no one.
In my foster brother family is a case of incest. We have kept that secret because the child is still living and has no knowledge of the situation.
