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Oh yes, how rude of me, thank you Val from me too.

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Rachel! He killed 2 people remember? You read it on another forum.

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OOOHHH... I have one of those too!! My Grandmother's brother was involved in a burglary where someone was shot. He did prison time. I guess that makes him my Great great uncle.

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This was my paternal grandfather's brother, so my great uncle too. He did 30 years in prison - was given the death penalty at first but that was changed to imprisonment. It was all to do with a love triangle.

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My two sons have a pretty interesting geneology on their dads side. They have a relative that fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy. He was taken Prisoner by the North in the battle of Atlanta. He was brought to Chicago to Camp Douglas which was a famous Union prisoner of war camp. He sat out the war and was released to return to his home in Alabama. He died an old man while he was out hunting possum. They found him out in the woods.

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Oh that is sad Audrey.

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nah.... he was an old man and died doing what most Southern men love to do... Hunt. Not my cup-o-tea mind you...

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Well done Val for starting this.

I started researching mine when I first got connected to the internet several years ago.

In our family we have an old Victorian photo album, a leather bound one with a clasp, which is a bit battered and torn inside from years of generations looking at it. Unfortunately they didn't think in those days to put names on the back of most of them.

Even though I've traced my family back through census's etc. I still would love to know who those folk were.

I did manage to find a descendant of one of the photos, an Arthur Best. A very handsome looking young man who was living in Boston, Massachusettes. A message put out on Ancestry brought me in contact with his Gt. Grand-daughter.

Its does get very addictive.

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Glad you are all enjoying this thread.

It's good if you can solve a mystery, mum had a rather heavy, but small safe. (at least the interior was small) which had come from my grandparents home. Inside the safe were some old letters, which meant nothing to Mum, there were 3 from Canada and one from America written in 1800's I ought to remember the dates but would have to look that up.
We eventually found out they were written by my grandfathers aunt's husband, they had married in UK and had a couple of children and emigrated, the husband wrote 3 of the letters his wife 1.
A fascinating insight into life and hardships then.

Through a second cousin found via the Genes website, she found a letter written by our great great grandfather's sister, which we managed to decipher between us, it was written when she was staying at her daughter's home during a confinement, so had used the daughters address, and unusually (or so we'd think) she referred to her daughter as Mrs Webb.
The letter was dated with day and date but not year, so we were able to find the daughter from the census, and managed to determine which year the letter was written.

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What actually started me off was the mystery about my maternal grandfather. My mother never spoke about her father and if I broached the subject she used to change the subject to something else. After Mum died we couldn't even find her birth certificate so I managed to get a copy when I went to register her death and found out her Dad's name. I sent for his death certificate and discovered he died aged 42 and also found out he was separated from my grandmother. Hence I got hooked on genealogy.