13-06-2015, 02:39 PM
11
Re: family secrets
The weirdest mystery which took me years to fathom was from my mother's side of the family.I couldn't go back beyond her father. All I have of him is an old photograph where's he's been cut off , with only his hand remaining. He had nice hands by the way.
After 7 years of research & luck .. I found he was born with a different surname to his daughter, my mum.
He had 2 surnames. His dad had 3. He was born with one surname, married under another and died under a third name.
Turns out his dad was a jailbird and he had 2 surnames too .. and his first wife was worse than him and was in jail about 6 times and I never found a death certificate for her. It looks like he left in her jail (or in a ditch) and fled the county to start a new life with their son. My g-granddad.
No wonder no one mentioned that side of the family
and mum always went poe-faced whenever I asked about them.
13-06-2015, 02:58 PM
13
Re: family secrets
Jodie we feel it funny as in a family way of loving our mum who had a tough life. Not funny ha ha , but happy mum did have hopefully someone who loved her and she had fun. I can't really explain the feelings in words to you. These emotions are ours , yet I can't imagine the shock and pain others may feel in similar situations as this is unique to me and my siblings. I do hope you are ok and hope my words have not upset you or anyone else who reads these posts .Non of you know me personally and I feel I can share such things here as I guess we'll never meet, yet I feel the folks on here are very accepting of my posts and hope they always will . Thankyou all x
13-06-2015, 03:37 PM
14
Re: family secrets
Originally Posted by susan m
->
I do hope you are ok and hope my words have not upset you or anyone else who reads these posts . x
I got the whole story when I was 18 .. I knew my dad had died when I was a baby & thought my bro was also his child, turned out my mother had married once before tho, to his dad , & divorced him cos he came back from the war with a dose of the clap ! :s weird thing is my brother knew all along too (he was 7yrs older) & never let on. My mum married again & my stepfather was a bully, so were his 2 kids.. so i hung onto my bro all that time, thinking he was proper family :s
13-06-2015, 03:46 PM
15
Re: family secrets
Originally Posted by Morticia
->
The weirdest mystery which took me years to fathom was from my mother's side of the family.I couldn't go back beyond her father. All I have of him is an old photograph where's he's been cut off , with only his hand remaining. He had nice hands by the way.
After 7 years of research & luck .. I found he was born with a different surname to his daughter, my mum.
He had 2 surnames. His dad had 3. He was born with one surname, married under another and died under a third name.
Turns out his dad was a jailbird and he had 2 surnames too .. and his first wife was worse than him and was in jail about 6 times and I never found a death certificate for her. It looks like he left in her jail (or in a ditch) and fled the county to start a new life with their son. My g-granddad.
No wonder no one mentioned that side of the family
and mum always went poe-faced whenever I asked about them.
x
Aye .. it's in the genes.
13-06-2015, 04:30 PM
17
Re: family secrets
Originally Posted by susan m
->
Our lovely mum , many years ago as a beautiful young mother had a secret that we have uncovered , there are seven of us kids , right little horrors we were too. When my mum was 60 , we were Watching a cine film from when we were all young. During the film my mum pointed to a handsome young RAF lad in his uniform and told me she had had an affair with him, my surprise and laughter made her smile. She also told my sister.
Mum had a large box of photos and in the box was a photo of this handsome man in his uniform. My sister found it one day and said "is this Johns father " mum burst out laughing and said nothing. You see my younger brother never looked like us.
Mum has been gone 18 years now and recently looking at the photo and showing John how like this man he is we believe him to be his father, even down to a quiff of hair at the front of his head , the nose and chin.
Well we think this is funny , we are not in any way upset or distressed by this as we are open hearted and open minded people and we have also lived our lives. We think of how mum must have felt concerned when pregnant with John , and how she passed him off as dads son.
Mums life was not happy with dad , and we are pleased that during her life with him she had some fun and hopefully was loved by this man , sadly we don't know his name.
Family secrets .....fascinating
I love your threads Susan
13-06-2015, 04:50 PM
20
Re: family secrets
I think that lots of families kept secrets simply because these things just weren't talked about and there was a certain amount of shame within the family at the time of the happening.When I left school at 16, I needed my birth certificate before I started work. That was when I was told I was illegitimate. My mother was in service and had me at the age of 16. My father being her employer. There was a big court case about it and it did explain why I wasn't treated the same as my other 2 sisters by the man who I called dad. I have since discovered that I have a brother and sister but have had no contact with them, although my brothers wife contacted me and we keep in touch at my birthday and Christmas.
At the age of 50 I decided to trace ancestry of both myself and OH. It was at that point that my mother in law told us that although our name is Simons, it should genetically be Smith. The story being that OH's grandmother left her husband and family and lived with another man and had another family. My father in law was the eldest so she gave him her married name. Very confusing and Smith is the worst name for researching. M-I-L still didn't like to talk about it but felt she had to tell all as she didn't know what I might unearth.
These things were much more common that we realise. I have found out lots through the different generations.
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