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I think I already mentioned the rumor that my grandpa had a violent relative that made him help dispose of a murder victim...
Last year while doing research on a third cousin's father-in-law, I discovered that the father-in-law had actually murdered his own father when he was 12 years old in 1934. I found five newspaper articles about the murder.
Apparently, the murdered father was a violent and unstable alcoholic who abused everyone in the family. The day before the murder the father had brutally beaten the boy's mother and had threatened to kill her by taking her to a nearby river and drowning her. Later that night while the father was asleep, the 12-year-old boy crept into his bedroom with a rifle and shot him four times in the head.
He was arrested but was set free a couple of days later without a trial. Neighbors and other people from the town came forward to testify that the father was violent and dangerous. The county prosecutor refused to press any charges, saying that the murder was "self-defense."
My maternal great grand mother was known as a free spirit. She and her parents came from Scotland when she was a young teen. They ended up living and working on the farm my maternal great great grandfather owned. His son married and had several kids, then his wife died and he moved back to the farm. Euphemia was fourteen. He then married her and had my grandfather, along with three of my aunts.
But he moved to his own farm, and then did well and built a house in town. This was the beginning of easy railroad travel, and he had a pass for himself and family as he worked for Union Pacific. Next, they built a house in Los Angeles since it was easy to get to on the train.
But she would settle in at the farm, and then without much notice, say get packed up and they'd be on the train for California. My great grandfather would discover her note when he got home. He'd give her some time and then go out to to talk her into bringing the family back to Iowa. And she'd move back. At least until she got bored and decided on another move back to LA.
They moved to Los Angeles when the kids were grown. They bought a house in northern California. He was retired from the railroad, but had other jobs. And Euphemia would just hop on the train with her suitcase and he'd come home and she'd gone up to the northern house. Then he'd give her some time and went to retireve her. When they sold the one house she'd take off on trips with or without kids.
Mom was often 'moody' and it just seemed normal to me. She'd just go into her room to read. I got the 'moody' too. I suppose if I had a train ticket and didn't have pets to care for, there are times I'd just LOVE to just GO......
Funny how we learn a lot about outselves by looking at the past.
I have a 3rd great uncle who married a mulatto woman who was the descendant of slaves and possibly a slave herself as a child in a small upstate South Carolina town not long after the civil war. Given what I know of the time and place virtually unimaginable to me. Maybe not so great for them either, because they eventually moved to Washington, DC where their children lived at the same time I was living there. Never ever discussed in my family even though I feel quite sure there were people who knew about it alive until I was a young adult.
My grandparents were cousins and I'm pretty neither they nor anyone around them knew it.
My uncle stole a car with child in the back seat around the 1940's. I found the criminal record in GA. Per my father he took the car back when he realized there was a child. Sentence...5 yrs....which he got out after 2 or 3!
I just got a new piece of scandalous info from a distant relative. I've known my great grandparents were related, but we thought it was as extended 'cousins'. Apparently not. They were uncle and niece. They had to leave town because the local sheriff did not approve. That explains why I have been unable to trace that line. My great great grand mother had the same last name as my great grandfather because they were brother and sister. I don't think my grandmother knew.
I have a 3rd great uncle who married a mulatto woman who was the descendant of slaves and possibly a slave herself as a child in a small upstate South Carolina town not long after the civil war. Given what I know of the time and place virtually unimaginable to me. Maybe not so great for them either, because they eventually moved to Washington, DC where their children lived at the same time I was living there. Never ever discussed in my family even though I feel quite sure there were people who knew about it alive until I was a young adult.
My grandparents were cousins and I'm pretty neither they nor anyone around them knew it.
My uncle stole a car with child in the back seat around the 1940's. I found the criminal record in GA. Per my father he took the car back when he realized there was a child. Sentence...5 yrs....which he got out after 2 or 3!
Just wanted to note on your mullatto ancestor that she may have been a free person of color. SC had a pretty large population of free people. Also inter-racial marriages were not as uncommon as I thought it would be. If you know the surname of the mullatto ancestor you can check at this website.
I am black and have found that I had quite a few mullatto ancestors (primarily descended of free people of color) who married white spouses. I've met some of my white cousins and spoken to others online who I found via research.
Some other interesting items I have been surprised about recently was that I found a cousin of mine killed a 6 year old child in a car accident. She was driving around 30 mph and a child on a bike went right in front of the car. She passed out on the scene according to the newspaper article in the 1960s and the child died. The child was an orphan and had been living in an orphanage for children in the neighborhood my cousin was driving through.
This was very surprising and sad to me. This was my great grandfathers 1st cousin and I knew her when I was a child. This sort of thing is also one of my worst nightmares, to hit someone's child so I was very sad reading it. I asked one of my relatives about it and they said the family didn't speak of it since it was something so tragic and that our cousin was so ashamed of even though she was cleared of any wrong doing and it was just a horrible accident.
Another potential surprise I have found is related to my Snively family. I recently found an article from 1858 in a Lancaster County, PA newspaper that stated that a negro man from Columbia, PA (where my ancestors lived) by the name of "Snively" was stealing meat from the smoke house lol. There had been a series of meat thefts and people had set up watch to catch the thieves and they were surprised that the negro had been able to steal the meat un-seen so many times. It had happened more than 3 times.
I've been researching the Snively family for a few months now. There was both a black and white Snively family in this area and some of them had the same names so it has been a back and forth thing with records and reviewing the white Snively records. This is the first instance in the newspaper that mentions a black Snively lol. I did discover though that the patriarch of the family I am researching in this era may have been a slave of the white Snively family in PA. A will of one of the white Snively family had listed "two negro boys" named "Charles and George." My 4th great grandfather's name was George Snively and so I am looking into this to confirm. PA had legislation passed whereby all black people born after 1780 would be free by their 28th birthday. Most were freed before that birthday. George was born approximately 1805-1809. This meat thief may have been one of his sons or maybe him, they didn't say the first name.
I get mad at the state of Pennsylvania since they don't have a lot of information online that is readily accessible. Luckily I have been planning a trip to Harrisburg to the PA Archives and I'm hoping they will be useful in my research on this particular family since they have documentation regarding owners of slaves freed by the "Act of Gradual Abolition" registered the births of their slaves, including the name of the mother of the child. The county I need for the years I need to review are not posted online.
I think I posted this somewhere on CD before but I found out a few years ago that my mother is blood type O as was my now deceased father. I'm an A and the odds of two O parents having an A child is almost impossible, like one in 5 million. My sister, who is a little younger is also an O. The only thing that throws me off is my younger son is the spitting image of my father.
Perhaps my half brother is wrong about our father's blood type, perhaps I am that one in 5 million or just maybe someone else is my father. My parents married 5 1/2 months before I was born. Things that make you go hmmm.
I think I posted this somewhere on CD before but I found out a few years ago that my mother is blood type O as was my now deceased father. I'm an A and the odds of two O parents having an A child is almost impossible, like one in 5 million. My sister, who is a little younger is also an O. The only thing that throws me off is my younger son is the spitting image of my father.
Perhaps my half brother is wrong about our father's blood type, perhaps I am that one in 5 million or just maybe someone else is my father. My parents married 5 1/2 months before I was born. Things that make you go hmmm.
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