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i dont think they are called lies. i think the polite term is family fable vs family history. we lie to our kids. we dont want them to go to school and embarrass us. so we tell them we came over on the mayflower.
"We" do?
There are lots of honest mistakes or stories that change over time because of the imperfections of human nature and memory.
There is just not knowing and being to lazy or apathetic to find out.
And there are lies trying to protect others, such as hiding an illegitimate birth when that would have ruined the parents' lives.
I don't know of anyone who does what you're suggesting.
I'd say some are deliberate lies meant to mislead. Then there are also omissions. There's stretching of the truth to make themselves look better, all sorts of things. Mine was a case of omission that left me wondering why we were not allowed to ask.
We could not ask my grandfather why they came to this country. That was part of the reason why I HAD To FIND OUT. Turns out the story was just so very sad that of course no one should have asked him. I admire him more than ever knowing his story.
Well, I'll tell you...my grandfather had two older brothers about 1895 in the north of England. When he was about 11, his oldest brother had a seizure and died. Next year, the second oldest, who was blind and suffered from TB, died. The year after that his mother died.
Now that left my grandfather to be the oldest with two little sisters. So his father probably wanted to get married pretty fast for them to have a mother (this was in the olden days in England when people worked long hours in the mills and you didn't just go out and get a babysitter). For some reason he changed his mind about the woman he said he would marry. She turned around and sued him for breach of contract to marry!
She won in court and got everything he had. But she wanted more. Off to court again because she said he had hidden some furniture. So he declared bankruptcy which was a major scandal in those days in England. It was all over the newspapers and he was called a pauper.
My grandfather grew up and got married but probably didn't have much choice in woman because they all looked down on him. Even my Gram would always say, "I married down." The mother-in-law would ridicule him and give him a hard time.
They had a little girl, then a little boy. Having lost two brothers, the little boy was my grandfather's pride and joy. He died at the age of 7. Kidney failure.
My grandfather had a broken heart but he stayed in England long enough to see both sisters married and he was on good terms with his Dad even through all that had happened. Then his dad was run over by a tram and was killed.
Soon after that my grandfather came to the USA and got a job. He sent for my gram and (by then) three children one year later. It was 1912, the year the Titanic sank, and my gram wanted to cross on the new ship, third class. My grandfather tried to get tickets but it was "overbooked." Seems that his luck had changed and the little family arrived safely at the same time as the Titanic would have, but on a different ship.
He never looked back and we could never ask him about England.
Well, I'll tell you...my grandfather had two older brothers about 1895 in the north of England. When he was about 11, his oldest brother had a seizure and died. Next year, the second oldest, who was blind and suffered from TB, died. The year after that his mother died.
Now that left my grandfather to be the oldest with two little sisters. So his father probably wanted to get married pretty fast for them to have a mother (this was in the olden days in England when people worked long hours in the mills and you didn't just go out and get a babysitter). For some reason he changed his mind about the woman he said he would marry. She turned around and sued him for breach of contract to marry!
She won in court and got everything he had. But she wanted more. Off to court again because she said he had hidden some furniture. So he declared bankruptcy which was a major scandal in those days in England. It was all over the newspapers and he was called a pauper.
My grandfather grew up and got married but probably didn't have much choice in woman because they all looked down on him. Even my Gram would always say, "I married down." The mother-in-law would ridicule him and give him a hard time.
They had a little girl, then a little boy. Having lost two brothers, the little boy was my grandfather's pride and joy. He died at the age of 7. Kidney failure.
My grandfather had a broken heart but he stayed in England long enough to see both sisters married and he was on good terms with his Dad even through all that had happened. Then his dad was run over by a tram and was killed.
Soon after that my grandfather came to the USA and got a job. He sent for my gram and (by then) three children one year later. It was 1912, the year the Titanic sank, and my gram wanted to cross on the new ship, third class. My grandfather tried to get tickets but it was "overbooked." Seems that his luck had changed and the little family arrived safely at the same time as the Titanic would have, but on a different ship.
He never looked back and we could never ask him about England.
Sounds like he made the right decision in not marrying her!
At least not getting on Titanic was a stroke of luck.
Sounds like he made the right decision in not marrying her!
At least not getting on Titanic was a stroke of luck.
The things you learn in genealogy.
Her name was Mrs. Salt. Even though she's dead, if I ever found her I would kill her. That's what I said when I read the old newspaper clippings. I still hate her.
Anyone else find out that there was some infidelity in there background or "adoptions" when researching their ancestry?
Looks like your question is "yes" that others have the same "family fables" which are unmasked through research (thanks Huckleberry 3911948 for the term "family fables"!)
We also have a number of interesting relations discovered. My favorite is that a great grandfather was married to two women at the same time and raising two large families simultaneously until, I suspect, his polygamy was discovered because he and his wives were all listed as divorced on the 1930 census. However, the women may not have known and the divorces may have come about because he was splitting his time between two neighboring states, and maybe the women were just tired of being alone so much.
There are paper trails that document the two marriages - we have one trail and a descendent from the other marriage has another, and both trails lead to the same man.
Every family has something I would think. My husband's family does. A long time ago, an unmarried sister had an affair, had a baby and the baby was given to a married sister who raised the baby as her own.
That's common as anything. Happens all the time, I'd bet.
Rarer? It's not a lie, but in my husband's family a cousin was assassinated. You get to use that word if it's a president. William McKinley, our 25th President. Hubs is a first cousin, three times removed.
Every family has something I would think. My husband's family does. A long time ago, an unmarried sister had an affair, had a baby and the baby was given to a married sister who raised the baby as her own.
That's common as anything. Happens all the time, I'd bet.
Rarer? It's not a lie, but in my husband's family a cousin was assassinated. You get to use that word if it's a president. William McKinley, our 25th President. Hubs is a first cousin, three times removed.
I had a widowed aunt who had an affair with a married man...in our very small town...back in the early 50s. She got pregnant but before she got TOO big she left for her sister's in Texas. Supposedly she was going to take care of her "sick sister". The baby was born, the sister and her husband adopted her and my aunt came home. The aunt and uncle who adopted moved back home eventually so my cousin grew up knowing her mother as "Aunty". Not sure how old she was when she found out the truth but it never bothered her and life went on. My cousin also knows her birth fathers family but they don't really acknowledge her. I think it happened a lot 'back in the day'.
One side of our family had an old English surname, supposedly with the paper trail to match. Then a relative had Y-DNA testing done and it transpired that a few generations back the paper trail and ancestry stopped matching: everyone descended from one particular ancestor were related but they weren't related to the other male descendants of the ancestor's father - not only were they not related, they were different races. So basically this one person in the 1800s had a different father than his brothers. Not sure if it were due to adoption, infidelity, or rape, but now we'll probably never know who the actual father was.
Sorry, that's not as dramatic as some of the other stories here! I like "family fables", that's a nice way of putting it. Closer in time I did find out that a grandmother was "walking down the aisle carrying more than the bouquet" but since everyone is still alive you pretend not to notice and move along...
Last edited by tribechamy; 01-31-2014 at 03:38 PM..
Reason: added
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