frostymama

I've been researching my family history for about 9 years now. In that time I have found a lot of disturbing information about past generations of the family that made me feel sick to read at times. Mixed in with the good and the average folk there were some truely cruel sadistic bastards.

Would it bother you if you knew that past generations of your family did awful things?

Gooch's dad

Bother me? I know it for a fact. I don't have to go any further back than my father. What sort of 'awful things' were you thinking about?

As for ancestors, I'm quite sure that those of my ancestors who were of fighting age in the 1860's fought for the South in the Civil War. I doubt any of them were wealthy enough to own slaves, but they would have if they had the money.

-Kelly

frostymama

Torturing children and animals for kicks, rape, fueding, murder, buying teenaged "wives"... that sort of thing. There is actually a "Child called It" style book written about one side of my family back during the 30s and 40s.

christ-on-a-stick

Hi frosty, (BTW I never congratulated you on the new baby!)

*puts rose-colored glasses on*

You could look at it differently and be glad and proud that you have *NOT* become a product of your ancestor's genes.

I can understand how that would be disturbing. Like Kelly, I only have to go back to my biological parents to feel all icky, like "I am *related* to these people?" But in a way it makes me feel good to have been the one in my family to "break the cycle" of many Bad Things.

oriecat

It doesn't bother me. In a way, I find it kind of interesting to have a wacked family history, instead of some boring history. What those people did in the past doesn't at all reflect on me and who I am.

My mom's oldest brother killed 2 people drunk driving. But then my mom's entire side of the family are pretty much drunks.

Our family name is not the same as it was about 120 years ago. I was working on family history/genealogy stuff and I finally got the scoop from my grandpa about how it happened. His grandpa (I think, or maybe one more generation back) used to live in S. Carolina. After that, he shows up in Florida, with an E in his family, instead of an A. So apparently, he knocked up some chick in SC, didn't want to marry her, so he moved it FL and changed his name! According to grandpa that's the true story, not some other versions that were out there. Makes an interesting story, despite that it wasn't a very nice thing of him to do.

pz

Not at all. One of my aunts worked out the genealogy of my father's side of the family, and another great-aunt worked out my mother's side.

My mother's side is actually kind of boring. They were all swedish and norwegian peasants, and they all seemed to have stayed in the same small villages until about 1900. It made the research easy, but it's kind of tedious to read. Christina married Peter in the same church in which they had been baptized and where there funeral would be later held, they had 11 children, 4 of them lived, etc.

My father's side seems to have consisted of all kinds of riff-raff of all kinds of nationalities, who arrived in America sometime in the middle of the 17th century. They then seem to have wandered westward at the leading edge of the frontier, working as cowboys and farmers and sheriffs and various less savory occupations (horsethieves, for instance, and several seem to have been on the run after shooting people), finally washing up in Washington state as migrant farm workers. Short and brutish lives seem to have been the norm, but it is much more interesting to learn about.

Monkeybot

The amount it bothered me would probably be directly proportional to how "close" to me it was -- if it was someone a long time ago I barely knew, it would probably bother me a lot less than finding out, say, my grandmother killed someone. As it is, my father's mother was adopted as a child, so we know nothing about her ancestry at all. Given that both she and my grandfather were from the South, it wouldn't surprise me if there's some Confederate way back in my ancestry. I don't know anything specific though, except that there's a Cherokee back there somewhere.

Hedwig

It personally really doesn't bother me. My family is also from the south so I do have Confederate ancestors. I'm not responsible for any bigoted beliefs they might have had. I'm not proud of it, but I don't deny that that's where a portion of my family comes from. I'm also distantly related to Belle Starr but again, it's not something that bothers me. All we can do is learn from our ancestors and try to be better people through it.

(I need to stop reading Kahlil Gibran...that last sentence sounded too hokey even for me. )

ajm51987

Nope,

I had a relative who actually was part of the Confederate Goveremnt, (Food supplier or something). In fact my grandmothers side were loyal Virginan confederates who owned slaves. And then athough this next point is subjective, my realitives way way way back were involved in founding the first permanent Lutheran church in the "New World". ::Shivers::

godlessmath

Not really. Actually, most of my uncles are/have been in jail, some use drugs (and I mean the hard stuff), and some drink too much. My grandfather is senile because he drank and partied too much when he was young. Basically, I have never had a drink in my life.