Someone requested information from when my family owned a grain mill in the mid 1800s. My dad

[applegrove]

had comissioned a history on that mill and I believe it was published in a very limited way. It told us that the mill had a few children working for them. As a kid, I had seen pictures of the workers at the mill and I had always assumed it was 'family day' at the mill. Anyhow, some other family that owned the mill before us is doing a museum type display on the history. They asked if we had any information. So I am sending all that I have. Those kids' story deserves to be told.

Anyone else come across bad news when doing genealogy?

[Sherman A1]

1. Every family has some

thing or someone in their lineage that would today or then make them uncomfortable. I try to think of things in the context of the times and sometimes that helps to make sense, other times it does not.

My family has some folks in it that were less than forward thinking upstanding folks by today's standards or even the standards of their day. It's just the nature of things, we cannot change the past and I think that by learning what we can about our families we learn a bit about the world from which we developed.

[madinmaryland]

2. A few interesting tidbits...

One ancestor killed her three young children and then took her own life. This was in the 1890's.

Another ancestor was given a full and "honorable" Ku Klux Klan Burial service back in the 1920's.

Another ancestor shot and killed another man in Arkansas in the 1830's. He was a tavern owner and was not charged due to self defense.

A great-great Aunt was a moonshiner and bootlegger in the 1930's. She got busted and spent a couple of months in jail.

[pipi_k]

3. My grandmother spent time in prison

She left my dad when he was five...he never knew why for 50+ years.

Well, she had an affair outside of marriage (I think it was my grandfather's brother) and was kicked out, went to live with her parents, her mother had her put into the women's prison in Framingham for being "promiscuous".

Well, she had a child there... Nobody ever spoke of him, and I never knew he existed till I saw a census from 1930 that showed he had been born in prison. That was the last we heard, until I was contacted by his daughter. He had been living in Hawaii before he died. What makes me suspect he was the child of my grandfather's brother is that my g. uncle was like the ONLY person who went to visit her. I wrote to the Secretary of State and got her prison records. It's there. PLUS...my cousin in Hawaii emailed me a photo of her and her dad. OMG. He could be my dad's twin brother almost. They look more alike than my dad did to the rest of his half-siblings from grandpa's second marriage.

Anyway, Dad found his mom shortly before she died, and I can only assume she told him everything. He never said a thing to the rest of us, and the only way I found out was through genealogical/legal records.

My grandmother the jailbird.

It's a real sad story, though. Alcoholism and mental illness virtually permeates my dad's side of the family...

[polly7]

4. I have suicides in my family.

About every second generation there were at least a couple, one gr. uncle killed his whole family and himself. Another did the same with his sons and himself. They seem to have been when times were really tough and the family was destitute. I still haven't been able to include this in the history I'm planning to give to relatives, but I probably should, as I have the death records that prove it. It's sad though, and hard to know how to go about it.

[The Genealogist]

5. Unfortunately, I have come across bad news doing genealogy

My great-great grandfather was apparently so emotionally abusive that she spent time at a mental hospital in Osawatomie, Kansas. My great aunt's husband was terribly abusive, and when my paternal grandfather stepped up to try to do something to help his sister, her husband and her husband's mother, both rich and vindictive people, blackballed Grandpa, so that he could not get a job as a minister again. Several of my maternal grandmother's siblings (and my grandmother) had mental issues that were not diagnosed, and they tended to make each others' lives quite painful.

[LaydeeBug]

6. I found out my grandfather's great great great grandfather was a slave trader.

and on the other side of the family, there is an aunt who was married six times and the cause of death for her husbands is "sickness" Hmmmmmmm

[kestrel91316]

7. One of my g-g-g-grandfathers was head of the (ahem) "enforcement arm" of the early Mormon church,

aka the Danites. In addition to ridding the church of dissenters and men who didn't like to be cuckolded by Joe Smith and Brigham Young, he appears to have been directly involved in carrying out the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

To his credit, he eventually turned on the church and was excommunicated along with my g-g-grandfather (his son-in-law).

Oh and another g-g-g-grandfather and g-g-grandfather were involved in beating the cr-p out of some guy, why I have no idea. One was arrested but not charged. The other fled and apparently stayed out of that county for years. It didn't stop him from being an itinerant preacher and shoolteacher, though.

[shanti]

8. every family has skeletons in their closet

i'm doing my family tree now and a couple of places are just dead ends. makes me wonder why....