@BlackAzizAnansi Don’t really have any interesting family secrets but have some trivia. My grandmother passed away last month at the age of 102. When she was young she knew her elderly grandfather. He was a Civil War Union veteran and was present at the burning of Atlanta and in Sherman’s March to the Sea. I also have a copy of his war diary. My whole life I have been only one living person removed from the Civil War.
@BlackAzizAnansi My grandmother forged my grandfather's name to get a bank loan for their house, because he didn't believe in owning. And of course a women couldn't get a loan.
She let him believe for years that they were paying rent to someone....
@cstephens2@BlackAzizAnansi My impression is that eventually he knew--but they died a over a decade before I was even born, and I don't remember my mom relaying that part. I wonder if my older siblings know... I should ask.
@BlackAzizAnansi One unspecified older relative was allegedly a Dutch Nazi collaborator, and another was a Dutch Resistance fighter. At family gatherings, it did not go well. It is still occasionally mentioned by older relatives.
@BlackAzizAnansi My grandma grew up with Helen, the eventual wife of César Chavez. Because of this connection my uncle was recruited from the fields with his cousins to march with the movement and he ended up sitting on the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown when he signed the Farm Workers Rights Bill in 1976.
We're still looking for pictures if anyone might have something in an archive of a journalist at the time.
@BlackAzizAnansi My family went refugee to France during the Spanish Civil War and asked a friend to look for their house. When they returned, the "friend" had decided to keep it for himself, and they were homeless suddenly. So an uncle let them live in one of two places that she had for their business. It was a brothel 😃 And that has been our family's house till very recently.
@BlackAzizAnansi My (white) grandfather told my (white, teen, unmarried, pregnant) mom that sometimes white people just spontaneously give birth to black babies. At the time, my mom was like W. T. F.
Family tree sleuthing a few years ago found a multiple-times great grandfather that married a black woman.
I'm some other family's (or, at least, the father's) secret, tho.
@BlackAzizAnansi a relative of mine who never married lived together with her adult daughter her whole life. Never thought anything weird about this until my sister pointed out the age difference between them, that mathed out to mom having her daughter when she was 13. We suspect familial rape but everyone involved and everyone who would have known the people involved are now dead. No one ever talked about this, and most of my childhood I thought they were sisters since they were so close in age.
@BlackAzizAnansi my uncle got friend of his pregnant. Didn't want a child, so he just told her it was her problem. She had the baby, stayed friends with my uncle and everyone just decided to not say anything. This girl grew up knowing nothing about her dad... Even though she knew him very well as a friend of her mother's.
Obviously she found out, but not until she was a whole ass adult. And, in a completely unsurprising turn of events, she was righteously and royally fucking pissed off.
@BlackAzizAnansi I found out a few years before she did, as a teenager, and I kinda regret to this day that I didn't tell her the moment I found out. We weren't close, but she deserved to know.
Just an unbelievably fucked up situation all around.
@BlackAzizAnansi
My great grandmother died from a rifle shot. The only people at home at the time were her husband (my great grandfather) and her two sons (my grandfather, aged 12, and the baby).
Police showed up and asked what happened.
‘Oops. Terrible accident. Baby did it.’
Police say, ‘Terrible shame. Oh well. Nothing to be done. Sorry for your loss. Have a good day. Bye.’
I swear on my favourite shoes, I’m not making this up.
@BlackAzizAnansi My grandmother from Mobile, Alabama told me before she died that she fell in love with a Brooklyn piano player she had met in 1945 while working for Wells Fargo in NYC during the war. His name was Alex Fingers, and he was planning to fly down to Alabama to marry her when she was kidnapped by my grandfather (from Atlanta, Georgia) and forced to marry him against her will. I always wondered why she was so angry and inward. She never willingly left the house in her whole life.
@BlackAzizAnansi My great grandfather had a number of illegitimate children with various women, as well as the 10 he had with my great grandmother.
It was accepted in the family that one of the illegitimate children grew up to become a famous television personality, jokingly referred to as “Uncle” when he was on TV.
They stopped boasting about this after the celebrity died and was outed as a notorious sex offender.
I am the family secret. My whole family is, actually. My grandmother had two daughters several years apart with the same man (whom she married and stayed with for decades until her death) but adopted both out, told no one--not even her sister--and refused to release any info to her kids until after her death (Canada let's you do that when you adopt out).
Only with gene tests did we find the family. Also, fun fact, my grandparents lived in the same town as us when they died.
@BlackAzizAnansi My uncle was a drug dealer. He said that he got approached by an FBI agent while on vacation in Mexico who told him that the feds were closing in and he should drop it right away. He did, and never got caught. But he died young, just a few years later, from health problems due to alcohol and heroine abuse.
@BlackAzizAnansi My great grandmother wouldn't tell her son, my grandfather, who his dad was. He asked her on her deathbed, and she wouldn't tell him. She then died. So, I don't know what my real last name is.🤷🏾♀️
Commercial DNA tests are a textbook example of data value disparities. For the purchaser (subject) they solve - at best - curiosity. For the owners of the data, they provide a non-fungible, exploitable, profitable data source - for generations of your family. Your progeny don't ever get to consent to have their DNA used against them.
@StillIRise1963@FitsofPique@Peternimmo@katmckatniss@BlackAzizAnansi@paul_ipv6 Absolutely not. And it’s worth pointing out that race is a cultural invention, and doesn’t even exist in genetics — but I have zero confidence that there isn’t somebody stupid and/or monstrous enough to try it anyway if given the chance.
@birdpoof I've wondered the same. My dad said that people told my grandfather it was Mr. So in so down the street, but I don't know if he asked her about him or what.🤷🏾♀️ @BlackAzizAnansi
@BlackAzizAnansi With all appropriate skepticism: My family is said to contain many of the uncredited indigenous people who helped preserve and translate ancient Maya language for worldwide study. (That's basically all the information I have, just that idea, and my family hate-crimed me last year, so I'll never know more. 🤷🏼♂️)
@BlackAzizAnansi My grandfather got executed - shot trough his neck - and survived. Woke up in a pile of corpses, climbed a 4m high prison wall, broke his leg, hid in a church, escaped. Spent the war using a duplicate of his brother's documents (brother didn't make it - died near the end of the war, from getting injured while poaching).
This was an unbelievable family story until a few years ago a documentary film crew showed up, asking if we have any photos of him.
@BlackAzizAnansi My grandfather (paternal) had been married and apparently had a child with another woman before he passed away. No one in my father’s generation knew about this until he died when a photo of him with the woman and baby in a stroller was discovered. A great uncle confirmed that he had been married and divorced before marrying my grandmother (they were married for 50 yrs before she passed). Nobody knew her name or any other details. Kind of surprised nothing has come out about this unknown relative since DNA tests have gone commercial.
@BlackAzizAnansi Great grandma wanted to to marry a boy her parents didn’t approve of. So they boy “kidnapped” her and they went into the woods for a few days. When they re-emerged, her parent HAD to marry the two together to safeguard her honor.
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