Weird Stuff We Find in our Family Tree!
@MadameLaCouyan (149)
United States
December 29, 2006 10:52pm CST
As we are working on our lines it is inevitible that we will come across some very interesting and sometimes some really weird stuff. Almost every family has a black sheep and most have quite a few. Care to share a story from your family that you've found?
Here's mine. I have a 9th great-grandfather that was born and raised in the back woods of Virginia in the mid 1700's. This family was known to be one that folks would want to leave alone. In the court records I found the most interesting record against this grandfather. He was charged with assault on a house! According to the record, he had gotten in a verbal altercation with a gentleman and later that day had gone and thrown a rock at his house. This was brought in before the courts and he was charged with assault on a house and required to pay a fine.
Like I said...weird stuff! ;)
5 people like this
23 responses
@momknows (284)
• United States
30 Dec 06
It's funny you started this topic. I've just started researching my tree after many years of fustration. When I was in middle school one of our grades was for doing a tree. No one in the family would give me any answers and I received a F for being lazy and not doing my project. That grade still bothers me to this day.
I just recently found though Newspaper Archive that my gg grandfather shot and killed my g grandfather over the position of a handle for drawing water. I'm beginning to see why no one would talk to me.
@JMPILAPIL (503)
• Philippines
31 Dec 06
This is not as bad topic as you think deeplot. People are just sharing things around. We are free to create topic here as long as we want with respect to the rule but if you don't like the topic then just skip it.
@bimmer999 (1159)
• Philippines
30 Dec 06
lol yes many weird stuff indeed..
thanks for sharing man!
1 person likes this
@14missy (3183)
• Australia
31 Dec 06
I live in Australia and all of my family history is traced backl to either Ireland, Scotland or Germany. My mother's family were originally from Ireland and her great great grandfather was said to have shot his "evil" landlord/land owner and changed his name and then fled to Australia. We have traced down very old newspaper articles to prove the story. I also have a bushranger and a ancestor that was involved in the starting of the famous Kew gardens in England. Geneology is a great thing. My family has a castle in Scotland also. (Pity I can't have some of the wealth associated with this time in Scotland)
@jal1948 (1359)
• India
31 Dec 06
Ifyou really go down the family tree for a few thousand years you will find that we all are related to each, without any god made religion,following our own dictates, or of the community so there is no escape ofhaving a criminal as a relative
@nanna_m (71)
• United States
31 Dec 06
While researching the census records of my maternal grandparents, I found that they had three children listed. The first two names I recognized as my aunts, but the third name was of a boy named Marshell. I knew my mother didn't have a brother by this name so I contacted everyone I knew who might have a logical explanation. I found out from a cousin that the Governor of that state made a proclamation that stated he would give a mule to each family who would name a male child after him. My grandfather, being a farmer, changed my uncles name from Marshell to Sennett. He received one mule as promised. And that's my weird, but true story.
@deebomb (15304)
• United States
30 Dec 06
I think family trees are so interesting. My grandfather was a horse thief. He told it this way. He was out riding the hills and came across a man on the hill side over looking a farm. The feller ask him to go down to this farm and bring him the work horses. He had bought them but could not go take delivery of them because he had to meet some one on this hill. Well grandad went down got the horses and brought them back. About a week later he heard that the farmer had his work horses stollen. So that is my granddad the horse thief. Oh this would be any where from 1910 to 1920.
@stellarjade (1238)
• United States
30 Dec 06
Its not a great story or anything, but my grandma did a search on our family history, and found out we are related to general robert e. lee. I thought that was kinda neat. He married an aunt, making him my fourth great uncle.
@GardenGerty (157551)
• United States
31 Dec 06
My paternal grandma was the first female child born in Bessie, Ok. I never figured out if she was named for the town, or the town was named for her.
@emarie (5442)
• United States
30 Dec 06
well basiclly there are just a lot of cheating, and children out of wedlock stuff in my famly. i don't do the family tree thing, just too many trees to look at. i have 2 on my side, a few are kept up by family members, and my husband barely knows his. but basiclly, when you trace my husbands famly back, it becomes royal family...so i think thats cool. my family had a coat of arms thing, but i don't think it was royalty, just nobility.
@volschenkh (1043)
• South Africa
30 Dec 06
I have not gone exstensively into my family's geneology, but one thing that I do know is that we all have brown hair and brown eyes, not a single exception to the rule. I found that to be phenominal!
@KrabbyPatty (64)
• United States
31 Dec 06
I followed in my dad's footsteps and research the family tree. I found out from my dad that one ancestor was a Tory and his sone was a patriot. The father hanged his son. I think this happened in Tennessee.
@thepromptwriter (474)
• United States
30 Dec 06
Too Cool. We found out that my grandfather (my mother's father) was a moonshine runner. Now mind you, the man I knew as my grandfather was a very proper gentleman who went to church, worked very hard, and had to have a dish of ice cream every night after dinner. He was nothing like I would have imagined a rum runner would have been. He even got shot at by the police. I'm so proud. LOL
@wildecoyote (975)
• Australia
30 Dec 06
yep
criminals, unwed folks who lived together for 21 years before they got married back in the 50's
@samsonskola (3357)
• United States
30 Dec 06
I found out something really interesting when our family trees were done. I am part Native American on my mothers side. And on my fathers side, I found out the his family were party to buying Manhattan Island from the Native Americans! Talk about war within the family!...lol...that, due to the fact that I adhere to the Native American part of my heritage, has been a sore spot in the family ever since!
@whiteheather39 (24403)
• United States
30 Dec 06
We had a bad guy back in the 1700 he was hanged for sheep stealing since that day no-one has been called James (Jamie) in our family. In Scotland that was a big no-no but we did have one nice person (I think) who was one of the ladies in waiting to Queen Mary when returned from France, although she was not welcomed too well into the family as she was Roman Catholic and they were not too popular in Scotland.
