Family secrets were much easier to keep before DNA came along. Especially readily available DNA.
I have over 700 names in my family tree. Many of course are not direct relations, but people who married into the family. And relationships are interesting. The children of one of my second cousins are my first cousins. No, not a typo. The second cousin married my uncle.
I have spent hours researching family and where they came from. I've discovered marriages and divorces I never knew about. Name changes are enough to drive one crazy. And I've discovered relatives I never knew I had and some relatives I thought I had may not be close relatives at all.
My Ancestry DNA has ove 14,0000 matches. I've tried to just figure out who the fourth cousins and closer are. But there have been many surprises.
There is a second cousin once removed who I will not put in my tree. After much sleuthing, she and I figured out that her mother was fathered out-of-wedlock by one of my cousins. It was war time and I am sure a lot of that happened. Neither of us wants to cause any embarrassment, and she has been asked about it and has been vague in her answers to the family. I am like a dog with a bone and wouldn't give up until I pieced it together.
OTOH, I found out today that my supposedly second cousin is a distant cousin and may not be a cousin at all. I have long wondered why a relative who was in America in the 1880's would return to her home in Europe and remain for several years before returning. She left here with her husband and daughter, but they returned here with a son in tow. Now, through DNA, it appears that descendants of that child are related on her maternal side only, and distantly at that, if at all. Did this person bring back an illegitimate child of a relative and raise him as her own? I guess we will never know. Family secrets. If you are gone for more than two years and come back saying you had a child while you were gone, who would know?
Thanks to a distant cousin in Florida, I discovered that my great-grandmother had siblings (we are related though her father's family). I had the address of a family in Pennsylvania that my mother corresponded with. One of the those descendants had no idea who we were. But once I had the name of a sibling, I found her coming to America to be with her sister, marry and have her family in PA. I am kinda amazed that no one other than my grandmother and mother seemed to keep in touch with them.
There are very good reasons to ask questions and learn about family when you are younger. One of my Canadian cousins has lived in New Zealand for many years. She says she remembers me, but I am sure she has me confused with another cute cousin, lol. We have been sending messages back and forth with her trying to figure out who she visited with in the 1960s in Detroit. I am pretty sure it wasn't me. But my memory of old family get togethers gets a little fussy after 70+ years.
I am not sure there is much more I can learn without hiring an expert (pricey). It still amazes me how families all seemed to be so close when I was growing up, but now we are spread all over the world. We see each other rarely, if at all. Then again, there are some I have no interest in seeing, lol. Family secrets and all that.
It is fascinating what you are discovering. I know one set of my cousins when digging around in their father's ancestry found out that he had another family, i.e., a wife and several children, that he left behind in Ireland when he emigrated to the United States. Supposedly he was to send for them, but somewhere along the line met my aunt and they got married and had 3 children of their own. Thankfully, both he and she had passed (it would have killed her to realize she was married to someone already married) by the time their kids put it together, but the kids were able to track down their half siblings, travel to Ireland and meet them (their mom had also passed by then). Even in the "best of families" (although of course none like that exists) there are always secrets that go to the grave. I'm sure we have them in our extended family; just no one alive much these days to tell them.
ReplyDeleteI do agree. It is good to learn about one's family when one is younger. But then most of the time (at least I didn't) we weren't interested and then when I was, it was too late to ask those directly involved. Though at a recent family wedding, I was able to talk to my aunt (who is really a 2nd cousin but she was older so my mom wanted us to call her aunt rather than by her first name only). She is the only living relative that knew my dad and was able to tell me a few things I had questions about.
Are your boys interested in the family tree you are compiling?
betty
I just heard about someone last week who had her DNA done and found out her elderly 'father' whom she cares for is not her biological father. She confronted him and her told her that her mother was pregnant when he met her and he married her and promised he would raise the child as his own. And he did.
DeleteMy grandfather never wanted to talk about his life in Poland. His family was not happy when he left as he was the only son who could run the farm. My aunts from Italy never said much about the war years (WWI) there except one told me it was awful how the Germans took over their farm and home and made them work like slaves.
My oldest son did have his DNA done. I am sure they will be more interested as they get older and at least the work of finding the family should be done for them. By me, lol.
I'd rather not know about my ancestors for fear that I might find out things I'd rather not Know! Having said that there are a couple of distant family members I'd be pleased to learn aren't my relatives! My lot are also spread out. One collection resides in California, there's another assortment in Quebec; my Mother is semi-Canadian. I moved to France but I came back. You are clearly getting a great deal of pleasure from your quest.
ReplyDeleteI have relatives all over Canada and the USA. A cousin in Hawaii, one in New Zealand. There are the cousins who never left Poland and Italy and are still there. One of my New York cousins found relatives in Poland on Facebook. Communicating is a challenge since neither speaks the other's language.
DeleteThen there are the cousins who left here to go to work in your neck-of-the-woods. One is at UWE Bristol; her brother is at the University of Lille and lives in Paris; another cousin in Basel, Switzerland.
We cover the globe, lol.
Some members of my family have worked on this and sent me the information, but it is not something I could be bothered with quite honestly. There is a programme on TV Finding your Roots, now if I could get them to do mine, they do a lot of research on their chosen people. I must admit I would like to know if Matt really has some of the famous people in his tree that he understands are part of his genealogy.
ReplyDeleteI love Finding Your Roots. The minimum price to hire an expert on Ancestry is $2500. I don't need to know at that price.
DeleteI had to give up trying to find my ex-husbands Irish ancestors. Too many SheehanSheehanas, Cliffords and Fitzgeralds to figure out who's who. I did trace his English ancestors back to Northampshire in the 1500's.
Hi Denise - you have certainly been sleuthing ... good for you - it is interesting ... not having children, and having been given some details in the 1970s, I know a fair amount. I'm glad to read one of your sons is interested ... all the best with your future sleuthing! Cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteThanks Hilary. Pretty soon we'll all be related to one another somehow, lol.
DeleteWow! The cousin married your Uncle?? Was this her Uncle because I am reading this late and I can’t quite get it straight in my head. I love juicy skeletons. My dad’s family has some stuff go8ng on but this happened in the 1870’s and it is so hard to find out but, apparently, he liked going to the bars rather than deliver the mail under the Kaiser rule so he had to leave quickly. He supposedly changed his name fr9m Bader to Baderski. I know my great grandfather on my grandmother’s side was murdered in 1916 but not sure why. Ahh to find out...
ReplyDeleteMy mother's first cousin once removed married my father's brother, making her an aunt by marriage and her children became my first cousins.
DeleteTrying to find out anything back several generations is difficult. My cousin started an Italian genealogy group in Windsor, but one of the things they deal with now is privacy issues with Italian governments making it more difficult to do research. And many European records are kept in churches and not in good order or they were destroyed during the wars. The Polish records of my ancestors are written in Cyrillic. Good luck with that.
Very unusual about your second cousin and uncle. That's quite a discovery.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find intriguing about all this is that most of them time we're following the paternal line/name, and not so much the maternal. That doubles the "trouble" and makes the task seem too big! But I love the mystery of it. I'd like, if I ever had time one day, to follow the maternal line back as far as possible...
ReplyDeleteI have followed both the maternal line in Italy and my paternal line in Poland. I am not sure why they look at paternal lines as being more important. Must be a guy thing.
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