Question of the Week: Have you discovered or uncovered a fact you were once a bit hesitant to share?

+38 votes
2.9k views
During your genealogical research; have you discovered or uncovered a fact you were once '''a bit hesitant''' to share? Can you share now?
in The Tree House by Deborah Collier G2G6 Mach 3 (39.3k points)
I discovered that my Grandfather was married once before he wed my Grandmother AND he had a daughter with his first wife - both pieces of information unknown to my Father.

His first wife died of Tuberculosis during their 2nd year of marriage and his daughter died of pneumonia 3 years later.  My Father was extremely upset that he had no knowledge of a half-sister.  He made it a personal goal to find his half-sisters' family - which he did - and was eventually able to reconcile his feelings towards his late Father.
Glad to hear that the search for and finding his family helped bring healing of the unsettled thoughts toward his dad. Great lesson here. Thanks for sharing.
I am a little hesitant to share that family members on both sides of my family have been flagged as Jewish in some historical records that I found. They surely did not know they were Jewish. I don't know who labeled them in these records as Jewish or what the criteria for the labels was. I am not sharing where I found these records, as I don't want to endanger the availability of the records. Wherever they originated, they could be useful for someone researching his or her family tree. I was stunned to find out that my mother's maternal side was labeled as Jewish.

So far, nobody in my family seems very surprised. Since the maternal side boasts first families of America that were WASPs, I am quite amused. If I have a female Jewish ancestor on my mother's maternal side, the family may have known and may have hid it. They had no idea that generations later, we would have genetic testing that might explode their view of themselves as "pure" first Americans that came from the British Isles.. This is why I am in search of valid source information about Rutha Pierce and her mother Ruth. There has to be a reason why they have vanished into the fog of history. A geneology researcher on Family Tree claims to have found evidence that Rutha Pierce changed her name to Frances Lang. I can find no valid source records for Frances Lang, either.

If we are Jewish, then I may have stumbled onto the truth about my family on my mother's maternal and paternal sides. I can find no records on my father's maternal or paternal side labeled as Jewish.

I welcome the truth. I simply wish that I could find out who and how my mother's maternal and paternal ancestors have been labeled as Jewish.

Serious inquiries about where I located the Jewish records may be sent to me at my email address. Please explain why you want the source of these official records and what you hope to accomplish with knowing how to find them. These records may apply to the following family lines: Shipman, Brooks, Wood(s) of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and Day, Lee, Pace, Hobby lines of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Alabama.

If you are a member of the Day Society of America, it is highly likely that you know who you are and how you are related to me on the maternal line that goes back to pre-revolutionary war times in the South!

I am going to work on constructing the maternal lines of the Day family tree that includes the Hobby, Pace, and Lee lines to which I allude. The work has already been done on FamilySearch but it is not easy to locate the family tree. I have done some of the work also on Ancestry.com. I cannot claim that all of what I have added to Ancestry is 100 percent accurate, as my family tree on the maternal side is a work in progress.

Peace to all.
My stepfather who comes from a very religious and conservative family simply did not believe me, even when provided indisputable truth that his oldest brother was conceived before his parents marriage. So when his older sister who he insisted never married was found to have had a child, I just kept quiet.
Nope! Sometimes I find these juicy tidbits and immediately text them to my sister and friends or post them right to Facebook. Embrace the skeletons!

What I have learned from doing genealogy is that there sure was a whole lot of hanky panky going on back in the day, probably as much as there ever has been. The only difference was that people didn't speak of such things.

If you lived in colonial New England, there was also a lot of cousin marrying going on. The population was so small and pickings were such that one couldn't simply just discard 1st and 2nd cousins as possible mates.
Deborah, very touching story, thanks for sharing.
Moira,

Thanks for sharing.  A lot of people have Jewish roots and don't realize it as there were a lot of conversions to Christianity and the other way over (Trump's daughter for example converted to Judaism).  In Spain, today, one in five people have Jewish ancestry and probably don't know it.

Now, on the flip side, compared to 100 years ago when having Jewish ancestry carried a negative stereotype, today we don't have nearly the bigotry of years past.  Indeed, the opposite is quite true today: there is a sense of pride and "coolness" with discovering Jewish roots - at least in America.

Barring direct written evidence (finding a record of a religious ceremony in your family tree) the best way to find out is to take the FTDNA Family Finder DNA test.  It will tell you if you have any markers for Ashkenazi or Shephardic Jewish ancestry.  I have quite a few cousins who are as WASP as can be who show 1%, 2%, 5%, etc.  Most likely that someone who was Jewish converted some generations ago.

I'm as WASP as you can get and imagine my surprise when I found that I had 2% Turkish in my bloodline.  I suddenly understood why my gggggg-grandfather's name (in Colonial America) was William Turk.
I was told we all come from the 14 tribes from Abraham's seed. Going to fellowship I learned to read names because our ancestors left information of our clans and tribes in them. Recently while doing my research I have found that I am definitely from the tribe of Manassah,an ancestor was an Albino and ancestors came from Mexico. I really love doing this research much to find out still since I was adopted outside my own family. This gives me a wide range of research.

32 Answers

+25 votes
 
Best answer
So these may be the secrets the family swept under the rug. My 2nd great granddad, Uriah DuBois, married a final time in 1865 to Rachel (Hall) Case. Rachel's first husband, Robert Case, a Sharpshooter in the Civil War for the Union out of Michigan died during service in 1863. Uriah was 55 at the time he married Rachel, who was about 35. In my collaboration with researchers on my family, were shared references that the couple had a child named Winseme. Sure enough, Winseme is listed in their household in the 1870 US Census as a 1 yr old Female.

However, I found the birth record for Winsome DuBois born 16 Oct 1868 to Henry DuBois (Uriah's son) and Lois Case (Rachel's daughter). Ah oh, this was the step-siblings child and under Female on the record, there is the word: Illegitimate! William Henry, who was always called "William" by family, was born in 1841 and was himself accused of desertion of his company in the Civil War, didn't even want his first name written on the birth record of his daughter. Sometimes we have to be the bearers of sad, ugly and even embarrassing family news. The records do not lie, and now we know the rest of the story.
by Rod DuBois G2G6 Pilot (192k points)
selected by Susan Laursen

Wow - that's one story you really need to 'see' to understand the convoluted mess they made of that little girls life.  I get so angry when searching Canadian and US Catholic Church pre-1900 records and I see Baptized Illegitimate child of... or... Baptized Indian Child.

I realize it was the way 'back then' but, it still angers me.  Thanks for sharing your story :)

I totally agree Deborah. I'd like to dig into the rest of Winsome's story to find out how her life turned out. I will put it on my to do list right now. Thanks again.

I have seen church records of baptism in the Danish lutheran church where the child is referred to as Bastard child of...(my translation from Danish, but it is not a nice word for sure) and the mother is then referred to by a similar nasty word. Now "Illegitimate child" doesn't sound so bad, does it?

My own family secrets are limited to a few suicides, one was an elderly lady and in the family it was never questioned that she died from old age. Another was a young man who i never really heard much about, sometimes someone would mumble something about Tuberculosis, but no real facts. There are still living people who knew the persons in question, so I keep this rather anonymous.

It is always shocking to read how people communicated back in time. I am just as perplexed, cringing at times, hearing people speak with racial tones in today's world. I am so glad I didn't grow up in an environment like that.
Have you seen some of the Irish Parish records? Obviously the Priest had opinions and no idea anyone would ever read them again! Mary the slut finally married Patrick....
Scottish are not much better "X had a child in fornication to Y" Penalty paid to the Poor fund. They even pointed out illegitimacy on death records. Tagged for life :( no wonder my Grandfather refused to allow my Aunt to get his original Birth Certificate.
A poignant clip, SJ.
More disturbing examples but from parish records. No, I had not read anything like this from a church but, sadly, it does not surprise me all that much. The "tagged for life" is a phrase we can learn from to make sure it does not occur in the lives of children we know. Thanks for adding to the discussion, Lynlee.
+29 votes
Yes I found that my grandfather's second wife was his mothers sister. Explained the family discord.
by Tammy Havrum G2G5 (5.7k points)
Oh boy do I know about family discord. I can top that but the person is still living. When she dies,  I have a story to tell.
I bet that led to some uncomfortable holiday dinners...
+24 votes
Sure - it was a bit awkward to find out that my wife's great grandfather was one of two men who were the last men to be executed by the State of Florida by hanging for murder. Apparently they switched to the electric chair after this execution. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing (that they switched).

Regardless, it was apparently a family "skeleton in the closet" for a number of years, but it's a searchable fact on the internet, so in my mind, it's out of the closet now.

Along those same lines, I also came across one in my own family, where my relatives were in Kentucky on one Census, skipped the next Census, and then showed up in Michigan. The urban legend goes that they were running moonshine, which was apparently a popular thing to do, but the local Sheriff, who was also involved in the moonshine business, did not appreciate the competition. He showed up at their father's door to make a courtesy call, explained that he would be back in the morning to arrest them, but that if for some reason he couldn't find them in the State of Kentucky the next day, then well... then maybe he wouldn't be able to arrest them (wink wink nudge nudge). Their father told them to pack and get the heck out - now. So they loaded up, and moved two states over to avoid the law, who wasn't exactly pure as snow either. In Michigan, they found jobs and settled there and really never returned to live in Kentucky ever again.
by Scott Fulkerson G2G Astronaut (1.5m points)
Love those moonshine stories!
counterfeiting for mine; supposedly my ancestor didn't really know what was going on; his nephew asked him if he could store some stuff there but maybe that's what happened there too, why two "agents of the law" went to his home and overheard them - ancestor and family but not nephew trying to hide the boxes of equipment nephew had "given" him for safekeeping, except he was arrested convinced he was complicit in it, charged both him and nephew, both indicted - but this is what I don't understand, maybe somebody can help, weren't trying to counterfeit our money but Spanish milled dollars, whatever that is, except says species of silver coin current in the state - anybody have any idea what that's all about? nephew petitioned for a change of venue, claiming wouldn't be able to get a fair trial there "because of adverse publicity generated by prosecution" - ya think? by the next year nephew was in a different state as well - well, well, what do ya know? married to his cousin - go figure - his father had already moved there after disowning all his kids, to go live with his nephew and namesake and they took off for a fresh start - will wonders never cease...that same year ancestor wrote his will - hm, premonition? probated the next year but not settled for another 8 yrs. but haven't been able to find out if he wound up taking the rap for the deal while nephew got out of it or it maybe because of his age back then - 73 yrs. old - the stress just did him in

do find it interesting that owning a 100 acres was considered impoverished, so wonder how many "extensive's" considered? and 31 slaves is considered prosperous, which is the word used also to describe the other nephew this one's father had gone to live with, so maybe he felt he had to do the same? the question is how he did it?
+22 votes
My mother's family did the best to cover up the fact that my great-grandmother was raped.  So my grandmother was raised as her mother's sister.

In my father's maternal family, my great-great-great grandfather, not only married his first cousin, but was also hung by a mob in Estill County, Kentucky.  It was a rather celebrated fact in that it even got recorded in the city's history books.
by David Hughey G2G Astronaut (1.7m points)
David - I'm thinking that being raised as your Mother's sister is a story that many, many others share..how sad to know that 'back then' hiding crimes committed against woman was considered common practice.
+23 votes

I found a woman (relation by marriage) who, 1767, was sentenced to decapitation (and burning of the body) for murdering her child/ren. Her husband had left her (without a divorce) so she was technically married, the man which she cheated with recognise the event but claims to know nothing of the child. 

Her son testifies against her, so imagine the drama. The community is a scattering of islands and a tight knit community so the neighbours are reticent. In the end the father of the child has to pay a fine to the church for indecent behaviour. The woman is pardoned but imprisoned since she keep denying her crime, it is also unclear if there where one or two children that she murdered and the court wants to find the body/ies.

This is the short version. The court minutes are available in swedish ;) Larsdotter-1766 (with sources)

As for the relationship this woman would be 5great grandmothers sister-in-law's brothers wife. So not really a close relationship :)

 

 

 

by Marinetta Törnberg G2G2 (2.2k points)
This is a really interesting story!! I can just see it as a "Movie of the Week"!
+19 votes
Somehow my last email disappeared as I was writing it.

I have a Aunt who was always prim proper,better then the rest of the family and when she passed I uncovered she had gotten pregnant out of wedlock , married one man who left her when the ink was dry on the licence ,but had another man claim the child in writing only.The paper read,here is the paper you needed,but is to NEVER been used or shown unless checked with my Lawyer or in a extreme emergency.I have so many stories like this one,,My father's side of the family had a great many secrets,,and made sure most went to the grave,I was given all the papers and all the secrets,that where on paper..Oh but to know more would be great
by Rita Miller G2G3 (3.5k points)
As my Mother used to say - it's only a secret when it's between 2 people, once a 3rd knows then it becomes public domain :)
+18 votes

Oh where do I start?

  1. The first data I didn't want to share was the debunking of a long-held family legend-- that ancestors Johannes and Regina were married on the ship coming to America. They weren't. Regina still had her maiden name on the arrival passenger list and we found their marriage in Buffalo shortly after. Not I think what you were looking for but ...
  2. Through our family's genealogy research, My father discovered that his first cousin was in prison for murdering his wife in a famous case back in the 1980s. The cousin served many years in prison, before finally getting released on something like a third appeal that was basically a technicality. Some people came to a family reunion that included him; some refused. 
  3. Kind of a reverse: a cousin with whom I collaborated on joint research, sharing family files between us, removed from her copy my information about a still living and "out" relation that included a reference to her seven years living with another woman. The cousin shared her version of this incomplete story at a family reunion. The lesbian in the family was present. "Gee, seven years of my life and my acknowledged partner dissected from my life..."
  4. My husband is descended of a woman who engaged in a form of wife-swapping in the 1780s, drawing into question the paternity of her youngest children. Another cousin begged me not to include that question not because of the wife swapping but because of the impact on all those DAR and SAR applications shed submitted over the years! :-)
  5. A researcher lit into me around the same story -- but another person involved in the scandal. I had proposed a pretty sound theory for my identification of his ancestor as the perpetrator who started the scandal. He refused to believe it but could not or would not provide any evidence to the contrary. I'm happy to be refuted but not without evidence. 
  6. A slew of premarital births in 18th-19th century Schwenningen. The biggest gap: my emigrating ancestress was born three years before her parents married. 
by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Pilot (896k points)
edited by Jillaine Smith
Oh Jillaine - I just bet those DAR and SAR applicants were 'shaking in their boots' thinking the truth would be told!
If it leads to a proven American Revolutionary patriot I don't think the DAR is that prissy about the path to membership. They have an outstanding genealogical library, and I believe that they are  interested in truth.
+19 votes

I wouldn't say I was hesitant to share anything, because I'm of the mindset that "what's in the past has passed."  We can't change it, fix it, redo it. We can only learn from it.  That said, I've discovered a few things that surprised me, even disappointed me. 

  1. My 6x great uncle (on paternal grandmother's paternal side), "Chief John Watts aka Young Tassel" was part of the party of 1000+ Cherokee and Creek Indians who led the raid which resulted in the Massacre at Cavett Station, where my 6x great uncle (maternal grandmother's maternal side)  Alexander Cavett and his entire family were brutally murdered; an event which ultimately saved the city of Knoxville from attack and certain destruction in 1793. 
  2. Multiple ancestors who owned slaves
  3. Several paternity questions
 

 

by Summer Orman G2G6 Mach 9 (94.2k points)
Seems like those pesky paternity problems keep popping up for most of us!  I also had relatives who were both the 'attackers' and the 'attacked'.  Always makes me sad when I read those tales but ultimately, my sisters and brothers were all born so there's a happy ending for me.
ooh, Summer, didn't realize you had relatives on both sides - wow - course you know but they don't that I'm part of that Cavett family
+17 votes
I discovered that my grandfather (my mom's dad) was married and divorced before he married my grandmother.  He had one child, who had 2 sons.  I was in contact with one of the sons.  The child (my mom's half brother) was adopted by his mother's second husband.  I can't share this information with my mother, but have shared it with her younger siblings.  The half brother has passed, but I hope to meet my cousins one day.  I didn't put the information on my grandfather's WikiTree page...but will once mother passes.

My grandfather was a violent alcoholic, which is detailed in his divorce papers from his first wife.  He was also divorced from my grandmother, before being put in an institution (he tried to kill my grandmother)...all of that isn't shared either...but I did mention that he was instititionalized due to alcohol and mental issues.  My grandma didn't like people knowing she was divorced.
by Peggy Kirby G2G6 Mach 1 (12.6k points)
Peggy - I completely understand  - My Grandmother used to tell us not to air our 'dirty laundry' outside the family.
LOL, kiss those days behind - every kid has a phone and records EVERYTHING now.
+19 votes
Yes, I've discovered that I am the product of generations of Bohemians who acted as though marriage licenses should be considered as important as used cocktail napkins. M-grandmother forced her unmarried daughter to put me up for adoption. That is the same grandmother who had an affair with her supervisor's husband, and produced my bastard aunt - an aunt who became legitimate when grandfather divorced his wife and married grandmother. That divorce only occured because while this was going on, grandfather's wife was having an affair with grandfather's brother-in-law. When grandfather's sister discovered the goings on, the proverbial "poop hit the fan". Grandfather's first wife took their child and divorced him so she could run off with his b-i-l. Grandfather's sister snagged her husband by the ear and made an abrupt cross-country move to California. Grandfather, newly divorced, married his mistress, legitimized their 1st child & produced a second. His first wife moved, with their child, into her parents' house  - and continued having a "career" with the phone company in the 1930s. All of it smells  thoroughly modern.   All this was sandwiched between equally salacious stories of grandfather's parents on the historic side and his children on the more recent.
by Michele Britton G2G6 Mach 2 (20.4k points)
edited by Michele Britton
My 7*grandmother remarried while her husband was still alive.  This is still causing waves, but the truth is in the records.  She had 6 children or so by her second husband.
Wow. That you have documentation of the bigamy (2 weddings and no divorce, annulment or death) means you can add this grandmother to the Black Sheep project. ;-D
Good grief - how do you keep it all straight without a score card?????
Deborah, with this crew - you ought to SEE what family gatherings are like. ;-)
You are right!  Who do I need to contact to add her?

This discovery has been awkward on a number of levels even though it's 200  years old.  You see, she went to Quebec, and most likely never dreamed that the - um, situation - would be discovered.  Since her daughter went with her -- did her daughter know?  Since her son and 2 other daughters stayed in Nova Scotia -- did they know?  I've learned that sometimes teenagers discover things about their parents and then help keep the secrets.  Or not.
You don't actually need to contact anyone if you are the profile manager for her. You just write the profile bio, document all the sources you've used and then add the template {{Black Sheep | Bigamist}} and [[Category:Bigamists]]. If you are not the profile manager, proceed with caution and approach the PM about adding her to the Black Sheep as a joint project. Some folks are very touchy about revealing misdeeds, even if they were comitted by someone else.  Her profile will, at least, have company. I'm working on another great grandfather who at least told the census numerator that both his women were his "wives". I've found only one marriage license so the other might have been subterfuge to conceal a mistress....or since he kept the women in seperate states, he might have been an actual bigamist.  Here are others:

www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Bigamists

If you are interested in adding multiple sheep or working on profiles of famous or  infamous black sheep, join us on the project... Located at

www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Black_Sheep

Just think, as time continues to pass, a natural distance generates and her story will become less and less awkward for her decendents. A well written bio, with a dash of humor added, could turn out to be a legacy story that brings about a chuckle or two while acting as a true-to-life fable illustrating to younger generations how a poor decision plays out over time in one's own life as well as the lives of the following generations.
+15 votes
I have been thinking about this question since it was asked - along the lines that more or less the only thing I hesitate to write out in public is when the cause of death is given as constipation or diarrhea (now, I don't always enter other causes of death, either, and sometimes there is just no cause given).

I had forgotten about this great-aunt (or is it great-grand aunt) who had a stillborn child out of wedlock, which probably damaged her for life. When she married, later, there were no children. I found this in the records and still hesitate to share it.
by Eva Ekeblad G2G6 Pilot (566k points)
While that may have been a life changing event for her, and one that might have been the event that shaped the rest of her life, it was also a source of grief that she chose not to share. Had the child lived, obviously his or her life would be another leaf on the tree. That the child never had life outside the womb, perhaps a very good case can be made for letting your aunt bury her grief in her own way. Not everything that we know, or are, must be shared publically. Privacy does have its value although it seems to be quite diminished in current times.
+19 votes
The only truly shocking discovery I've made is one that saddens me greatly. My mother's father died the year she started college. She believed that he had died of an overdose of arsenic, administered at 10x the usual amount, administered to treat high blood pressure. The reason I'm fairly certain she believed this is that she never forgave her mother for not suing the doctor.

I've had a few people tell me arsenic had never been used to treat high blood pressure, but dismissed this as people not knowing historical medicine. Oh, boy, was I wrong.

My grandfather died of arsenic poisoning, yes, but it wasn't because he had high blood pressure. He was being treated for syphilis, according to his death certificate.

My mother idolized her father and now I know that her mother chose to let her daughter be angry with her, rather than tell her something that would have hurt her badly. It changes my view of my grandmother, but opens up more questions that may never be answered.

My mother is dead, so she can no longer be hurt by this, but I haven't felt up to telling my dad, nor have I shared this with anyone from my mother's side of the family, as I've never met any of them in person and it was only through genealogy that we found each other. So, this is the first public airing of this tale.
by Pamela Lloyd G2G6 Mach 4 (42.3k points)
+16 votes
Yes, my great great aunt became pregnant when she was 15. She was also mentally challeneged. We later found out it was her mother's brother who fathered the child, as he did a runner and the police were after him. This was, of course, a long time ago, but it's still sad that someone so vulnerable should be taken advantage of. And the poor girl ended up having three children (none surviving till adulthood), so her uncle wasn't the only one who abused her.
by Susan Scarcella G2G6 Mach 7 (78.9k points)
+17 votes
In researching my husband's family, I found a great grandfather who was shot in a pool hall.  Murderers were acquitted as the dead man was adjudged as "needed killing," I teased him until I came across a branch of my family that had two murdering brother whose family was "well known by the doctors of the Maine Insane Hospital"  If our Grandparents were aware or this, the secrets went to the grave with them
by Mary Stewart G2G Crew (710 points)
My great grandmother had a brother who was shot during a dance at a cider mill. The murder was related to a lover's triangle. The received story from my family was that the murdered man had been involved with the murderer's wife. But contemporary news accounts said that it was the murderer who was having an affair with the murdered man's wife.

What amuses me is that the family assigned blame to our own relative for having an affair, while the world blamed the other guy.

The murdered man's wife was pregnant at the time, with the only child of their marriage. I figure that DNA testing on descendants could determine whether the baby was the child or her husband or the murderer, but apparently the child has no living descendants. So we'll never know for sure.
I Profiled a family for my best friend.  Her father's brother and a nephew were both killed in a knife fight in a bar.  Nephew died in the bar, the brother two days later.
+12 votes
Yes, several. Mostly I am content to keep the details quiet.

Db_errors brings some into the light. For example [[arbuthnott-163| Millicent    Arbuthnott ]], who seems never to have worked out who she was.
by William Arbuthnot of Kittybrewster G2G6 Pilot (182k points)
+14 votes
The one that stands out is discovering the old historical society battleaxe, who prided herself on her family's roots going back several centuries in the area, was a secret adoptee.  We found the paperwork for both her and one of my great-grandmother's cousins, adopted together by the same couple.  She passed away last year and I have no idea whether she was ever told (perhaps she knew and covered it up), but her descendants certainly have no idea.  I have wrestled with sharing that information publicly, but... no, I don't think it's my place to say. (and yes, I've considered that she might have been an intra-family adoptee, but her parents seemed to have no birth or ethnic information about her, so...)

In reverse, recently I came across a descendant of my grandfather's cousin who had no idea that "Grandpa Jim" was previously married and abandoned his first wife and four kids.
by Vicky Majewski G2G6 Mach 9 (90.6k points)
+12 votes
A relative of mine, back  in the late 1800's  In Australia no names here, had an illegitimate  child by an Indian Indian from India  to cover up the affair, she claimed to be raped by an unknown Aboriginal Man, to explain the child and his dark completion, the truth was only discovered when she revealed the secret to another relative, and told her to never reveal the truth, but she did on her death bed
by Living Anonymous G2G6 Mach 3 (35.7k points)

I have done a lot of research in Australia for Find-A-Grave (I'm a Texan and never have gotten across the pond yet), and I have been amazed at the number of children in records born years before the first marriage. Is this a product of prolific rape and lawless in a developing country, or were these thoroughly modern women refusing to hide their first born? It fascinates me.

+13 votes
I was doing a genealogy for a friend and discovered that her GG Grandfather's, Father, Brother and Nephew, all committed suicide.    3 generations straight killed themselves.  The person was a bit surprised.
by Craig Albrechtson G2G6 Pilot (102k points)
That is an excellent reason against suicide. It gives permission to others to do the same.
Suicide  is oftentimes a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Its a sad thing  that with all the millions of people in the world that a suicidal person feels that there isnt even ONE that they can turn to for help.  Studies show that suicide has a tendency to run in families.  So to everyone out there;  if you know of anyone (family member or not) who has committed suicide, and has a family member going thru tough times, take an extra minute to check in on therm and let them know you care and want to help.  You may just save their life.
+11 votes
That my dad's father had another set of family that no one knew about, but was confirmed after telling my dad and he talked to his father.
by Cheryl Hess G2G Astronaut (1.8m points)
+10 votes
3x great grandmother who told her kids that the father died.  She moved out of state and married another man.  I later found during my research, that the first husband was alive and well.  When she fled the state with the kids, she must have told the kids that dad died.  How sad.
by SJ Baty G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)
edited by SJ Baty

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