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I am getting to know more about a branch of the family that was somehow separated or ostracized about three generations back. My branch assumed that we were the major carriers of family lore...a few puny and fragmented stories. No one bothered to talk. Now it seems we were possibly the minority branch...surprise, surprise. Who shunned who? The actual cause for this separation stems from some sort of sibling breakup. Apparently the two families lived on adjoining blocks but the kids were not allowed to play together. The next generation grew up not knowing much about them and the third generation sees names in the phone book and wonders who they are.
I've discovered these cousins while working on the family tree. There are even more cases of lost cousins based on immigration from Europe at different times and settling in different locations but the intentional "cutting off" of closer families seems odd.
I have one case where my 5th great grandmother, who was a Quaker, married outside her faith and was somewhat shunned for it. There's a lineage book of their family, but in it, she is reported as having "died young". But death and probate records confirm her origins (parents names and siblings) and that she died at the age of 63, after having four children (obviously to be my ancestor she would have lived long enough to have children). My guess is that because she married outside her faith (and she actually had sex with him before they married, another big no-no which was detailed in Quaker records), that she was basically written out of the family history book. She does seem to have been on good terms with her brother though, who is mentioned as the administrator of her will. So it was nice to see not everyone shunned her - but it's unlikely it's a coincidence that she married outside her faith and was written out of the lineage book.
I recently discovered I have a branch of the family I never knew who are distant cousins related to my paternal great grandmother. Their grandfather was my great grandmother's first cousin and the grandfather fell out with his brother, similar to your story OP but it was about one of the family businesses. They never talked again, and like you said, by the 3rd generation we didn't know about each other!
That side of the family did know about my great grandmother's sister who died in 2005 and they had heard of my great grandmother but didn't know that she outlived all her siblings. They never met her and they have no family photos so I get to share those with them. It is an interesting situation because the family member that fell out with the brother was the only person that married a white person so this new family of mine is white (I am black as is the rest of the family)!
I am getting to know more about a branch of the family that was somehow separated or ostracized about three generations back. My branch assumed that we were the major carriers of family lore...a few puny and fragmented stories. No one bothered to talk. Now it seems we were possibly the minority branch...surprise, surprise. Who shunned who? The actual cause for this separation stems from some sort of sibling breakup. Apparently the two families lived on adjoining blocks but the kids were not allowed to play together. The next generation grew up not knowing much about them and the third generation sees names in the phone book and wonders who they are.
I've discovered these cousins while working on the family tree. There are even more cases of lost cousins based on immigration from Europe at different times and settling in different locations but the intentional "cutting off" of closer families seems odd.
This sort of thing happened with my paternal family, but only one generation back. My father was one of five children. He was born with an identical twin brother and a triplet sister. They have two older brothers. There have been deep divides between the siblings and quite honestly most are to blame somewhat for continued animosity. Since such divides have grown contact mostly stopped. When I was young there was a family reunion, since then there hasn't been one. Some children of that generation tried to organize and get one together but the parent generation disputed so much over the location (which dug up old family arguments) that the whole thing was called off. I'm hoping us children will get together and actually get a reunion going some day.
I suspect something like what you say also happened on my maternal line. Since he has passed, I've learned my maternal grandfather was a deeply flawed man. He apparently cheated on my grandmother often. My mother has since learned of and met a half-brother by one such occasion. There are worse things that can be said about him as well. My grandmother's brothers were upset enough that he treated her as he did after she married him they apparently at least once they came and roughed him up. I don't think he got the message. He had one sibling who has recently just passed. From what I gather she didn't like him much either.
I've started to wonder if the reason I never learned much about my ancestry up that line was due to him being un-liked by the rest of his family and combined with only one sibling created a sort of family genealogical information bottleneck.
I am getting to know more about a branch of the family that was somehow separated or ostracized about three generations back.
I have examples of shunning and ostracism in my family too. When I was growing up, my grandmother always told me that we were not related to another family in another nearby town five miles away with same last name (even though we were.)
My father finally told me the whole story: There was a family feud in the early 1950's over a 180-year-old flintlock rifle. It had belonged to my g-g-g-g grandfather and it was made in either 1820's or 1830's. By tradition, the gun was always passed down to the eldest son. In the 1950's, the gun should have passed to one of my great uncles, but somehow a junior branch of the family took it. The family fought like the Hatfields and McCoys over this damned rifle.
To this day these two branches of the family still do not get along.
Sometimes it just boils down to inheritance and will-related issues. Someone ends up getting cheated out of something rightful. Once you try and cheat your own family out of some money, that pretty much shuts the door for future reasonable communications. That says money is more important to you than blood. Why would you want to continue even pretending to like someone that thinks that way.
Sometimes it has to do with religion. Hubby's family is LDS - I wasn't - and worse, hubby left the Mormon Church. His family hasn't had anything to do with us since. Our children have only met two uncles, one older brother (not his wife or children) and one younger brother and his third wife, again, none of the cousins. They have absolutely no concept of that side of the family, they never have and never will.
I tried very hard at the beginning of our marriage. I would send Christmas cards (never received any), I'd try to keep in touch, try to get together for dinners, etc. and after hitting a brick wall enough times, finally realized it was a total exercise in futility. We moved several states away, been married 39 years, our children are raised, married, on their own, we have grandchildren - and no one ever even mentions hubby's family. I doubt I'll even let them know should hubby pass before I do.
I know of a family who cut off an adult child in the 1960s after he got into a scrape with the police. Something about a stolen car. Anyway, that was it--totally cut him off at that point.
Sometimes the "shunning" is really a choice made by the individual who cuts themselves off from the family. They move off on their own, and don't keep in touch, and after a while, no one else remembers where they are anymore, or what they're doing. One relative on my mother's side was like that. No one even seems to know why he cut himself off from everyone else. He didn't get along well with his own mother, apparently, that was enough for him to take off after he was married. Never kept in touch with anyone after that.
Also, sibling rivalries are often deep and bitter. One elderly relative played favourites with her kids, favouring boys over girls, and older kids over younger kids. The dysfunction never left that family.
Sometimes it just boils down to inheritance and will-related issues. Someone ends up getting cheated out of something rightful. Once you try and cheat your own family out of some money, that pretty much shuts the door for future reasonable communications. That says money is more important to you than blood. Why would you want to continue even pretending to like someone that thinks that way.
We got one of those...a thing that's passed down from generation to generation, and someone couldn't let go of it.
We decided it was way more important to love the person who couldn't let go of something that has no real value. Family first, things second.
After losing my mother, there were items that went to various people. I have no need for them, I do not want them, but for some reason, it was important I knew where they were and who got them. It was that way for a few years as I grieved. Now I've released that deep grief, and also can't remember who got what.
There is estrangement in my family for various reasons. The biggest one is most likely the uxoricide of my grandmother. That tragedy tore the families apart, and this happened many years before I had been born. I never even saw photographs of my grandparents at all. And the family never wanted to talk about it. They were very ashamed and this was probably typical of most families of that era. That awful tragedy in of itself probably caused the majority of familial estrangement over the years.
In more recent years, I tried to reach out to several remaining relatives on that side of the family those with the (tragic loss of my grandparents). Most of these relatives I've not seen since I was a teen or younger. I heard back from a very few of them. At least, one of my aunts was interested in talking to me, it was better than hearing absolutely nothing from the others. I wanted to share with them some of my genealogy finds. Perhaps in time, I will hear from some of them, even if I don't expect to have a close relationship.
Last edited by maus; 07-11-2016 at 08:32 PM..
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