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Old 09-26-2017, 01:01 PM
 
1,052 posts, read 1,288,788 times
Reputation: 1549

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Absolutely many that I'm ashamed of, or things they did I'm ashamed of.

I firmly believe if you are willing to be proud of the good things your ancestors do you should also be willing to be ashamed of the bad things they do. Otherwise it's a bit of a contradiction.

Certainly my many slave owning ancestors are aspects I'm ashamed of. A couple generations in one family owned around 70 slaves each, which is the largest slave owner I've found. Others owned a small amount, some only a single slave. Owning people is one of the worst mistakes of the US (treatment of Indians also being another) especially as it grew to massive extents in the South.

Another is discovering one of my ancestors had children with at least three different women at the same time. One was has wife, my ancestor. Another was a widow next door who happened to keep having children after her husband seemingly died (at least disappeared from records). Then a younger girl in the area which he ran off to and left his first family in Georgia and went to Tennessee and started a second family.

His name was John Pinkney Bryant and one of the more shocking aspects of his ego is he named two sons after himself, middle name included. I don't think his multiple children knew about each other, I wonder what they would have thought if they knew they had a sibling with their exact same name, that his father actually had a second version of him.

My ancestor, Elias Bryant, was the youngest child of him and his first wife and was born right around the same time the other children were born. He also was born around the same year his father ran off with his new "wife" to Tennessee, it's possibly he wasn't even born by the time he left.

Unfortunately for Elias his mother would be dead before he was an adult and was basically orphaned probably around 10 years or younger. As it turns out he would marry a Nancy Manassas Thomas who was orphaned at 7 days old.

As it happens I've mapped the same segments of DNA between descendants (including myself) of all three of these batches of children.

One of the more sad aspects has to do with the widow he had children with next door. After he left for Tennessee with another woman she seemingly had to move away and ends up in 1870 with her children working in a cotton mill. I don't know the story for sure but seems likely her having no husband and illegitimate children she was forced to put her kids to work for them all to survive.
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Old 09-26-2017, 02:20 PM
 
Location: Alexandria, VA, USA
1,110 posts, read 887,109 times
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I found out that my dad's father had been an Army deserter in the Philippine American War, and served time at Ft Leavenworth. No one would ever talk about him, and this is why....

However, the jury's still out, since there are some mysteries about him:

His enlistment records all show "very good character." but he then gets a dishonorable discharge??

He was stationed in the Philippines, and spent a great deal of time in the hospital there....

During this time, there were a great many atrocities on both sides:

Of late by reason of the conduct of the (U.S.) troops, such as the extensive burning of the barrios in trying to lay waste the country so that the insurgents cannot occupy it, the torturing of natives by so-called water cure and other methods, in order to obtain information, the harsh treatment of natives generally, and the failure of inexperienced, lately appointed Lieutenants commanding posts, to distinguish between those who are friendly and those unfriendly and to treat every native as if he were, whether or no, an insurrecto at heart, this favorable sentiment above referred to is being fast destroyed and a deep hatred toward us engendered.

Here is a report of other atrocities:

The Last Holdouts - Philippine-American War, 1899-1902
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Old 10-02-2017, 08:43 AM
 
16,212 posts, read 10,741,279 times
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There are none that I'm ashamed of.

There are many though that I think were characters. One of my distant great uncles served in the US Colored troops during the Civil War and while in NC he deserted his regiment to visit a woman and seemingly was getting it on for 8 days while he was missing. He ended up having to do hard labor as a punishment and be "confined" probably in a military labor prison for a month over it. I wonder if it was worth it lol.

I also have a great uncle on my mom's paternal side who married his niece and that is just nasty to me. Plus he was like 50 and she was 15 when they got married, so I call him uncle pedophile lol.

I have a very cute first cousin 4 times removed who has a very extensive criminal record. He was SUPER handsome! There are lots of prison/law enforcement photos of him in his record in various places in SE MI. He was a thief and robbed people at gun point at one time and served 8 years in prison for that. Other things were petty theft. He looks like you shouldn't mess with him but he was super handsome to me. He also was very bad to his wives and was a bigamist as he married a second woman without a divorce from his first wife. Both petitioned the court for a divorce over desertion. He lived until the 1970s and was 74 years old when he died. I would have loved to talk to him. There was a social media post going on a few years ago about peoples "hot grandpa" and seriously this dude was dreamy. He could have been the front man for that social media phenom back then.
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Old 10-02-2017, 08:48 AM
 
16,212 posts, read 10,741,279 times
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Oh, and I do have a slave owning ancestor who was a free person of color. He owned 2 slaves in 1810. I'm not knowledgeable about the circumstances of his slaves if they were family or held in general as property. I figure that was the time period so it is not a shameful thing to me. He was my 7th great grandfather and was mentioned in Carter G Woodson's book about black slave owners. I do plan on doing some additional research on him in the future. I do wonder if he owned family since he had been enumerated on the 1790 census as a free person of color and on many others until his death in the 1830s and only in 1810 did he own any slaves and it was a very small amount. But he may have sold them off for profit as well as he held substantial property after 1810 that was left to his wife/children after his death.
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Old 10-02-2017, 09:12 AM
 
6 posts, read 7,929 times
Reputation: 21
My most awful ancestors were Robert Latham and Susanna Winslow Latham. The Mayflower people weren't as wonderful as we have been led to believe.
one of the most extreme cases of a master mistreating a servant in that colony Domestic Violence in Plymouth Colony

In the case of the abuse of John Walker by Robert and Susanna Latham, death was the result. The first mention of the abuse of John Walker is when he is found to be dead, brought to court on February 6, 1654-5, at a Court of Assistants. The description of the dead body of John Walker is quite gruesome:
Wee, vpon due serch and examination, doe find that the body of John Walker was blackish and blew, and the skine broken in divers places form the middle to the haire of his head, viz, all his backe with stripes giuen him by his master, Robert Latham, as Robert himselfe did testify; and alsoe wee found a bruise of his left arme, and one of his left hipp, and one great bruise of his brest; and there was the knuckles of one hand and one of his fingers frozen, and alsoe both his heeles frozen, and one of his great toes frozen, and alsoe the side of his foot frozen; and alsoe, vpon the reviewing the body, wee found three gaules like holes in the hames...; and alsoe wee find that the said John was forced to carry a logg which was beyond his strength, which hee indeauoring to doe, the logg fell vpon him, and hee, being downe, had a stripe or two, as Josepth Beedle doth testify ; (PCR 3: 71).
These disturbing facts about the death of John Walker along with the fact that Robert Latham admitted to striking his servant left no doubt in the mind of the court as to his guilt, and he was "comitted to the custidy of the chiefe marshall" until the next meeting of the General Court (PCR 3: 72). At the next meeting of the court, Robert Latham was put on trial before the grand jury, who found him "guilty of manslaughter by chaunc medley" (PCR 3: 73). After pleading for the mercy of the court, Robert Latham was sentenced to be burned in the hand and to have all of his goods confiscated.
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