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You can not judge anybody from the past with today's morals.
Anyways, after the "extreme unction" Catholics die clean as a blank slate.
If I had a criminal among my ancestors, I would not feel ashamed of him at all.
I think I feel the way I do about my grandfather is because I grew up knowing my grandmother. I know my mom didn't get to finish college becase he dumped her without a dime (and he had sufficent dimes, just pure spite). I also grew up knowing him but there was more a feeling we went to see him since Mom wanted to, not so much Dad and I.
The great grandfather who left for work and never came home, but who's wife seemed to know why and did not seem to hold anger if quite a mystery, but I don't feel ashamed of him. There must have been a very good reason he needed to vanish.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I was amazed how many of my ancestors owned slaves. Not just one or two but dozens of them. Growing up my family always said "we was the poor white trash working beside the slaves". A few of them actually cried when they learned for the first time one ancestor owned slaves.
Oh yeah, and my great grandfather left his wife and 5 young children behind in Appalachian VA to head for some fun in the Central Valley of California. Dude lived to be 90 years old too. No justice under the sun.
Oh yeah, and my great grandfather left his wife and 5 young children behind in Appalachian VA to head for some fun in the Central Valley of California. Dude lived to be 90 years old too. No justice under the sun.
Do you know what he did there? The central valley isn't exactly Malibu. He could have been picking crops.
I just found out that one of my ancestors participated in a witch trial and the woman was hanged. Another line had someone who was on the jury in a witch trial and testified against a woman but she was pardoned by the governor of Mass.
I feel disgusted with both of these men. I supposed you have to consider the tone of the times that they were living in but still, couldn't they think for themselves? Knowing the final decision could result in a woman losing her life, couldn't they have been a little bit kinder?
Anyway, I've noticed that the only famous people seem to be the bad guys. The ones who killed the most Indians, the ones who won the battles. The majority of mine were mere farmers but you never hear a word about them.
Im ashamed that many of my ancestors were early pioneers, especially in to New York and the Mohawk Valley, and stole land from the Natives and created conflicts which some of them were also involved in.
One branch of my tree is currently blocked because the likelihood the father was a convict, and is hard to trace without much further information.
Other then that, most of them seem to be average Joes. I cant find much evidence of nefarious deeds, criminals or cold blooded murderers, or slavery of any kind.
It happened with the parents of my biracial great-great-great-grandmother named Minerva. Her father, James, was a slaveholder. Her mother, Louisa, was a slave. This was on a farm in Georgia in the 1850s. Not a big farm - no more than 5 slaves. But yes, I am the descendant of a slave owner.
According to my family, James was of Irish heritage, and he had reddish-blond hair and green eyes. He was a young widower with two young girls. He took Louisa as his mistress and had three children with her. They supposedly all had green eyes. The kids were still considered his property, even though he recognized them as his own.
James supposedly wasn't too bad (my great-grandmother says he might have actually loved Louisa), but I was bothered for a long time being the descendant of a slave owner, since it's possible he participated in selling slaves.
My surviving great-grandmother, who is 98, is Minerva's granddaughter and the source of this story.
My Republican ancestors embarrass me. Especially since I am a Unionist. Another ancestor that embarrasses me is my gg uncle who raped a gypsy and then immigrated to america.
I don't feel I have anything to be ashamed of that my ancestors did, nor do I feel I have anything to be proud of, because I wasn't there and I didn't have anything to do with any of it.
That said, there are some very interesting people in my ancestry, goodies as well as baddies, and I'm fascinated by their stories.
I thought I would jump into this. I have a couple of interesting ones. All the stories I had about my great great grandfather was that he died when his boys were early teenagers then mom remarried. The sons didn't get along with the step-father and moved out young. Found a 1900 census record for him saying his name was J B Stockton born in 1844 in Ohio. My great grandfather was born in 1894 in Kansas so I kept digging. I kept finding infomation about a Lt J B Stockton from Kansas in the beginning of the civil war but I couldn't believe it was him because a 16 year old wasn't going to be made an officer. I found more records that this Lt Stockton became a Captain, so even less chance of it being my ancestor. Then I found some Kansas birth records detailing my great grandfather and his two brothers. Two of them mentioned the father as Job B Stockton and the third mentioned Col Stockton. In this documentation, the ages of father and mother didn't stay consistent. This also meant that Lt Stockton was probably my ancestor. So what about his age? Well I found an 1860 census record saying he was born in 1836. His wife was born in 1870, so great great grandad was fibbing a bit on his age to marry his 16 year old bride in 1886. Way to go Job .
Another interesting one was the father of Issac William Riddle. My grandmother had a book that stopped at Issac. The detailed information in the book made me wonder why it stopped abruptly there. Then I found some information that said that family tradition had him being hanged by the British in the Revolutionary War. Well, if you had this information wouldn't you want it in the book, then I found some more information. He wasn't hanged by the British, he was hanged by Gen Cleavland, for being a tory raider. Now I know why the family might have wanted to prune the tree information.
Riddle? I have little info on the "riddle" tree of my family. Is there any relation to William P Riddle (1865-?) or Will Lilburn Riddle (1887-1956)?
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