Family history

I joined ancestry. com to find out about my family. I'm not using real names, one because one of them is still alive and their names aren't important, plus this is my family after all and I feel like 'protecting' them. I knew bits and pieces of my mom's dad's side of the family(I knew his parents' names) and had a fair tree going back to right before the civil war. Papa passed away Dec 1 2010, he was my last living grandparent so I kind of feel like I've lost a lot. Then I got going on my mom's mom's side of the family. I knew the names of my great grandparents(and my great grandmother lived until I was 7 so I remember her) so I went from there. I found that someone had a private picture of my grandma, great grandma and Rose(my grandma's oldest sister, who is actually the last living member of the family.) I had no clue who the guy was so I told his user name to my mom since he had used his name in his user name and it was Rose's grandson. I asked for permission to see the picture and he actually gave me access to his private family tree which tracks my mom's mom's side of the family(neither one of these last names even appears anywhere in my family tree) back to the 1600s on one side(the 'Smiths') and the 1500s on the other(the 'Jones.') Of course there are dead ends. My great grandmother's mother died giving birth to her so all we have is a name and nothing else(except possibly her year of death.) She was raised by a stepmother who treated her as her own so she had a mother, it just wasn't her biological one. Rose's grandson was able to give me the name of her bio mother and actually Rose is named after her, which I think is kind of neat.

I also knew my great grandfather was one of the first MO state troopers and I found a story of the history of his troop(Troop G.) Reading about him was amazing, and the fact that her managed to survive getting shot in the hand and the lung and was hospitalized for 25 months because of it. I won't say his life was great after that considering 15 years later he had pickled his liver and died of pneumonia(the shot to the lung left him very very susceptible to pneumonia.) His death certificate glosses it over saying his died of pneumonia and that cirrhosis of the liver by 'unknown' means contributed to it. He was still a prominent enough member of the community(he was sheriff for several years after leaving the highway patrol after I think 15 years) that no one was willing to say he had pickled his liver in too much drink and it wouldn't have done anything except bring shame to his family. Not that I blame him, I know that couldn't have felt good and it did seriously mess up his health, his drinking just made it worse, he died at 50, when my mom was 2, his mother outlived him by a year and died at 91(his father had died at 82) Rose is in her 80's and in perfect health so I do have good genes as long as you leave your liver and the drink alone(my grandmother pickled her own liver and died in 1994 at the age of 63. You can't tell me there isn't a genetic component to addiction, my uncle gave up the drink and now just downs pain pills like candy.) I had know that not only was he a very decorate trooper and well known at his time I already knew he drank himself(or more like drank his liver) to death just like my grandma so that was no big shock, but I didn't know he'd been shot until I started doing this and told my mom. The story had been embellished over the years(one person said he'd been shot 22 times or 33 or something like that) it was only twice and it almost killed him; there were multiple times throughout his hospitalization where they said he wasn't going to make it(my mom told me this), left his hospitalized for 25 months, and with lifelong health problems. The many cops just like him, who survive but are left with life long health problems or disabilities and way too many officer's deaths are one of the reasons why cops are required to wear bullet proof vests, a vest would have saved him(and many other innocent officers just doing their jobs) a lot of trouble. They just didn't have the technology at the time. Police work is also a lot safer now, most of the story of my great grandfather's history with the patrol involves shooting and killing people and being involved in shoot outs, but the only time he was ever injured was the one that nearly killed him. It's just kind of ironic that he spent his time in law enforcement tracking down and arresting bootleggers and then drinks himself to death.

I also read the obit of NJ(my grandma's favorite brother), he died at 47. I asked my mom if he was another one who drank himself to death(wouldn't have been the first and sure wasn't the last.) My mom actually said that they think his brother Paul murdered him, they think he poisoned him. They said he was acting really weird and guilty after NJ's death, nothing was ever proved by they were all pretty much convinced Paul killed him. That was a shock and something I almost wish I hadn't heard. I had met Paul when he(and another brother Allen) were living with my great grandma when I went to visit her when I was 6, I honestly don't remember him(or Allen, but I remember Allen a little better he was trying to get my grandmother to take some sunglasses, he had a bunch of them, and he seemed to be a little bit 'slow', if you know what I mean) that well. Paul had severe mental illness, the best we can figure it was either schizophrenia or schizo affective disorder. The schizo affective disorder diagnosis was thrown out by one of my old shrinks as a possibility when I described what my mom had told me about his behavior(I'm bi-polar but current shrink said it might be that with a touch of borderline personality disorder, I lost the genetic lottery on mental illness), we just all figure he had schizophrenia. The tin foil antennae on the roof so the aliens could talk to him the microwaves affecting him and being all around, stuff like that. I had always thought he was loony tunes but harmless, this changes that and kind of scares me. Paul's been dead since 2002, but it still bothers me, not knowing if he really did it. When I asked my mom if she thought he did all she would say was that that's what everyone was saying. I know there had to be serious suspicions on this for even one person to mention it much less others also to believe it. Our family doesn't really talk bad about each other and an accusation as bad as brother murdering brother wouldn't have been brought up lightly. It would have been better if my mom had just told me he drank himself to death(she almost said he did drink himself to death but changed her mind and told me the Paul story.) As bad as it sounds, it's all through my family history(I think at least person from every generation back through the 1800s has drank themselves to death) so it's just a part of my family history.

As much as I am glad I'm learning about my history(the first person to come to America was in the early to mid 1600s from England, I didn't even know I was British) some parts I wish I didn't know. It's interesting, it's just trying to digest parts of what I'm told. I am also thankful for all the pictures i have seen of my great grandpa(including on in his trooper uniform) and my great grandmother and several of Paul(including in his navy uniform, which is how my mom remembered him when she was a kid, he'd come and visit them when he was on leave.) I know every family has it's skeletons, especially when you have addiction and mental illness in it I just didn't expect to hear that one brother was suspected of murdering another.

Taryn

My sister and second cousin have huge files on our tree going back to the late 1700's. We've uncovered a few sleletons ourselves down the line.

A couple of our distant relations were classed as having mental problems like a lot of families back in the days, when really it was depression.

Last year my sister and l stayed at a small hotel last year which was run by our great great Grandparents in Scotland in the 1800's. My sister even tracked down pictures of them in a book on the area with them standing outside the hotel. Because it's now a listed building they can't do any major alterations to it, so it was a brilliant experience to walk in our ancestors footsteps

Oh, and we found out Grannie (Dad's Mum) had 4 other children from a previous relationship that died young. Dad never spoke of them so we don't even know if he knew about them?. Sadly he's no longer here to ask.

Family history is fascinating, and as far as skeltons, we all have them. I have some pretty disgusting stuff in my line, but it is what it is. I got interested in family history when I was in my teens due to getting some information on my mom's side of the tree, but until the internet and Ancestry and the other sites, I never really got very far. I'm not doing much with it at the moment, but I will get back to it. I have so much information that I need to sort and enter into my software that it kinds of overwhelming.

I love digging into my family history. Mine's not really exciting, typical average family that came from Italy and started life in NY, lol. I only managed to trace back to late 1700's

Either I don't know what I'm doing or there just isn't much about my family to find, because I didn't find much on ancestry.com (I don't have an account but last year they did a free weekend and I puttered around a bit).

But, as for skeletons, my mom believes my dad's dad was an illegitimate Kennedy child secretly given up for adoption . He certainly looked like a Kennedy, and drank himself to death (like a Kennedy), was born in Massachusetts, and was an only child who didn't look much like either parent. . .

Originally Posted by Willowy

Either I don't know what I'm doing or there just isn't much about my family to find, because I didn't find much on ancestry.com (I don't have an account but last year they did a free weekend and I puttered around a bit).

But, as for skeletons, my mom believes my dad's dad was an illegitimate Kennedy child secretly given up for adoption

. He certainly looked like a Kennedy, and drank himself to death (like a Kennedy), was born in Massachusetts, and was an only child who didn't look much like either parent. . .

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Probably very possible. Those Kennedy men were, um, active.

Taryn it's really cool that you can find all your roots and family. I know it's scary and weird to find out the skeletons weren't perfect, but I still think even that stuff is exciting and interesting.

I know one cool thing about my family, my grandfather was cousins with George Burns. Even cooler than that-my husbands grandmother was closely related to Grover Cleveland.

Originally Posted by Taryn

The story had been embellished over the years(one person said he'd been shot 22 times or 33 or something like that) it was only twice and it almost killed him; there were multiple times throughout his hospitalization where they said he wasn't going to make it(my mom told me this), left his hospitalized for 25 months, and with lifelong health problems. The many cops just like him, who survive but are left with life long health problems or disabilities and way too many officer's deaths are one of the reasons why cops are required to wear bullet proof vests, a vest would have saved him(and many other innocent officers just doing their jobs) a lot of trouble. They just didn't have the technology at the time. Police work is also a lot safer now, most of the story of my great grandfather's history with the patrol involves shooting and killing people and being involved in shoot outs, but the only time he was ever injured was the one that nearly killed him.

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"Every family tree has its sap," I once heard someone say.

Dottie had an uncle (by marriage--his wife was Dottie's mother's twin sister) who was a New Jersey state trooper. He was in several motorcycle accidents, and then was hit in the head with a pipe during a traffic stop. From that, he lost his vision in one eye and had to work desks the rest of his career. It's stories like that that explain the SOP that most police work from today, such as proper positioning of a car, etc. Little stuff, like unsnapping the gun strap. Have you ever noticed that the officer touches the back of the car when he approaches it? That's so his fingerprints are there, in case something happens, the car flees, and then the driver claims they have the wrong car.

There's a lot of psychology involved in police work. I used to listen to my scanner a lot, and I'm always amazed how many of the driver's records come back with previous problems, wants, warrants, etc. It doesn't take a lot of listening to that to know that most police have developed a sixth sense about the vehicles around them.

My family searches are all a dead end on my father's side. Pretty tough to follow when you're not even sure you have a correct full name or place of birth.

There are several of us tracing our lines but we all got the same answer regarding our father's side of the family, or more precisely the same non-answer as two world wars destroyed a lot of northern European records. Slightly better luck on my mother's side - I may have found a relative of her father still in Germany and am trying to get up the nerve to shoot him an e-mail (he can speak and read English) but my maternal grandmother's side slides into oblivion somewhere in Eastern Europe as there are again no records.

I would love to join ancestry.com. I've done a bit of the free trial offer. Is it great?

There is a book written about my paternal grandmother's side of the family, dating back to when our first ancestor came from Germany. A series of articles about our family ran in a local newspaper years ago, but I do not have those clippings. It seems that one of my great-? was a confederate soldier. His wife became very ill and he got permission to go home and see her. It turned out she was dying. He never went back, opting to stay at his wife's side. They sent bounty hunters or soldiers or whatever out to find him. He was shot before a firing squad. I thought it was both a sad and romantic story. He must have known the fate that awaited him by making that choice, but he did it anyway.

I took out a membership this year to get to records they have. I think I had just about exhausted all the free sites. (Such as sites that are part of www.usgenweb.org ) i also wanted access to the military records. I had a gg grandfather and ggg grandfather with government headstones but no death date. Got them now!

Unfortunately, records of my Dad's service in Korea were lost in a fire back in the 1970s.

I have had fun with the census records and chuckled that one year my great grandmother and her sister (they lived next door to each other) are listed as 20 years younger than they should be. Great grandma, who had left great grandpa but not divorced him, listed herself as a widow. Great grandpa, in another state, did the same.

Also, info on the census backed up some family stories.

In one case, the census noted if any member of the family is blind or deaf and that helped me with one family.

I do have a noose in one family tree. This distant cousin murdered another distant cousin and the trial became quite famous for the time (1900). He was hanged under state law.

www.findagrave.com has also been a help. I have connected with a distant cousin and helped another with info. Unfortunately, many of my ancestors seemed to have been too poor for headstones or the marker has been lost.

Oh, one day I was tired of trying to sort out mt tree started putting in names of celebrities in the search engine. Found info that one actor may be 5 years younger than was publicized.

And checking the trees of others has been fun. I have noted some don't seem to do the math and one has a man being 15 when my ancestor was born. Probable, but the wife was only nine years old at the time!

No Mayflower relations, but lots were part of early Virginia settlements in the 1600s.

My fave genealogist adage -

"Any family tree produces a some lemons, some nuts, and a few bad apples."