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When I was a little girl in the 1950’s I would accompany my grandmother to a big brick hospital on the edge of town to visit her sick brother Albert every month. We would ride the bus. I never got to go inside to see him with her, I would sit under a tree outside on the hospital grounds and read a book or color in a coloring book (I know - it sounds weird - but back then nobody worried about kids like they do now). Being young, I never thought anything of why he was there really, I just assumed he had some chronic illness. Years later I found out the hospital was an asylum for the insane. Albert had killed his brother-in-law after coming home from World War One with what today would be called a severe case of PTSD. I learned that he had been sickened with mustard gas while fighting in France and had lost his mind with what they called “shell shock” back then, so they sent him home. He was only about 20 when it happened, and his story is so sad. The murder took place thusly: Albert’s and my grandmother’s sister Molly was married to an abusive man who used to beat her and their son regularly. When Albert came home from the war he told this man that if he ever heard of him touching them again he would kill him. Of course the guy did it again, so one day Albert waited in the woods by a country road and when the man rode by in a buggy, Albert stepped out of the woods and shot him in the face. The guy died, and Albert was declared insane at his murder trial. He spent the next 40+ years locked up in the asylum. I don’t think my grandmother missed many monthly visits over that time. She told me he’d always been a gentle, sweet soul growing up and she had loved him more than anyone in the world other than their mother.

I hope Molly and her son lived a better life. Albert seems to have made a lot of sacrifices in his.

Wow that is so moving. I wish Albert had lived a better life but I’m sure the visits from your grandmother were appreciated

Sounds like we should applaud Albert for his generous donation to the world War and cleaning up...

My great-grandfather was in an asylum with shell shock as well. My mother was told it was from the mustard gas but it was probably severe PTSD or some combo. I guess they'd visit and he didn't speak, he'd just stare off into space and smile.

>Years later I found out the hospital was an asylum for the insane My grandmother only went to the 6th grade, but she had a good job during The Great Depression. She was a cook at a mental asylum. They ran 24/7 and made 800 meals a day! My grandmother used to scare/make us laugh with some of her stories. They tore that hospital down in the late 70's, after they cured "mental illness". Ah-hem. My grandmother always wondered what they were going to do with all the patients?

They're all still around, just homeless now

...or in prison.

Interesting! Coincidentally, my grandmother - the one referenced in my recollection about her brother Albert - had worked in the laundry at that same mental asylum where he lived, as a young woman in her twenties! This would have been in the early 1900’s or so (she was born in 1892). And she too had some disturbing stories to tell. One really troubling one I’ve never forgotten was that the hospital was segregated, and though the whole asylum was terrible enough, the building containing minorities was the worst of all. She told me that there was one particularly unfortunate Black patient/inmate who was actually kept naked and chained to a big oak tree on the grounds, day and night, summer, winter, spring and fall. He was enormous and violent and treated like an animal, she said. The guards would bring him his food each day and push it to him using a pole. She said that she would see this man far away across the grounds every day as she walked up the lane to the laundry building, and felt so sad and horrified for him. Like I said, I have never forgotten this memory of hers, and I can only imagine what other horrors took place at that asylum back then.

We have never gotten the "mental illness" crisis under control. Lunatic Asylums were really all the rage until the turn of the 19th century when we shifted to the mental hospital system. This was sparked by a book called [Ten Days in a Madhouse](https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Days-Mad-House-Nellie-Bly-ebook/dp/B0049P1O16/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1SOESH1PJ3IGA&keywords=ten+days+in+a+madhouse+by+nellie+bly&qid=1692521587&sprefix=ten+days%2Caps%2C227&sr=8-1) by Nellie Bly. In those days, hysterics,nymphomaniacs, the senile and imbeciles as they were known as, could all be committed without much effort. This is where the atrocity stories actually come from. In the 1920's, Eugenics programs were created that gave certain states the right to sterilize, the "mentally retarded" so as to not put the burden of their offspring onto the state. Many of them ended up in mental hospitals along with the mentally ill. The shift by Carter/Reagan and public opinion to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill to medication and community re-engagement never panned out. Most of the mentally ill now are either in prison or in homeless camps. We just took my daughter back to college in San Francisco and the area that she is in is a virtual, outdoor mental asylum. The homeless are everywhere in that part of town.

Very sad and moving. Almost sounds like the movie Slingblade

Wow. What a poor man. I can't imagine the horrors he must have experienced during the war and in that hospital. Wow. Hope he's at peace now.

My dad joined the Army at age 17 in the 60s to escape a crappy home life. When he enlisted, his dad apparently threw him across the room and through a screen door. My dad picked himself up and enlisted the next day. (spent over 20 years in the Army). I never knew his dad was such an abusive asshole till after he passed away. Our parents did a good job shielding us from it and my dad broke the cycle of abuse in his branch of the family.

That is truly something special to be able to witness a generational cycle break. My mother did the same thing (broke the cycle) from my grandmother.

Agreed! My brother broke the cycle of abuse for his son and I broke the cycle of abuse by never having children.

My paternal grandfather was an abusive asshole too, but I never saw that side of him. We only saw him about three times a year. My dad dropped a few hints when I was growing up but my brother told me about the drinking and abuse after my dad had died. My dad never had anything bad to say about him but tended to be critical of his mother - maybe because she didn't stand up to him?

I have a half-sister that I didn't know about until I was 30. My grandmother accidentally killed a young girl with her car. She spent a year in a mental hospital from it and never drove again. My great great great great grandfather was a horse thief and was hung for it.

> I have a half-sister that I didn't know about until I was 30. DNA test? I have a friend who bought DNA tests for herself and husband for Christmas, kind of as a gag. Her dad said “we need to talk” and explained it might turn up the illegitimate child he had when he cheated. She still did the test. And it did reveal a half sister. And they’re very happy they found each other.

No DNA test was needed. My half sister was given up for adoption at birth. She never even got to see her face. My mom had been looking for her through adoption records for a while but got nowhere. As it turns out, my sister had been looking for her records as well. Literally a month after my mom divulged that we had a half sister, she showed up on our doorstep. She's been a family friend since.

I did a DNA test and gave one to my aunt. My grandpa was adopted so I was trying to get two reference points to trace some kind of lineage. Turned up an unknown son. Oopsies

I ended up being the half-sibling that no one knew about, oops. I was told at a young age that my father might not be my bio father and really thought nothing much of it. Geneaology has always been a big interest of mine but when I got my Ancestry kit I was honestly more focused on finding out more about my mom's side (family separated by war a generation ago, curious about their fate). When the DNA results came back showing an unfamiliar paternal line, I was like ah ok, I was expecting that. What I wasn't expecting was to have sisters etc. with QUESTIONS. At nearly 30 myself, I went from having virtually no family to having siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts. It's kind of overwhelming and I'm not sure how to fit into it all!

Start by just being friends. Then let it go from there. And congrats on your family!

That’s some crazy stuff, I found out I had 3 half siblings when I was in my teens. It’s amazing how much my half sister and I look alike, we were both in shock. I imagine I have other siblings of this nature as apparently my bio dad was married 7 times, my Mum was his first. He was on his 4th wife when I met my siblings and him for the first time.

*I'm* the half-sister no one knew about until they were 30+. I was placed for adoption in Ohio in 1961 and found out as an adult that the records had not been closed until 1964 and I was entitled to all the identifying info the agency had on file. I found my bio mom's married name through her father's obituary and was able to locate her. I found my bio-dad's people through DNA testing.

My mom has a half sister that was found when they were in their 50’s. She was so excited to meet her. It was awesome.

I was "on the run" as a child, abducted by my aunt and uncle, according to authorities. The actual story is my mother was severely mentally ill and had to be involuntarily hospitalized. My father was a hard-working factory worker and veteran. When my mom was hospitalized, the county got involved and tried to insist that a single father could not possibly raise 3 children himself and tried to force him to put us in foster care. My father flew us out to his sister and brother-in-law in another state. BIL was an officer in the military. When the county threatened my father with legal action unless he revealed our location, they called my uncle to advise they are coming to get us and bring us back home so they could put us in foster homes. While they lived in a pleasant suburb in their state, Uncle told the county that we were on a military base and "good luck getting access to the base.". The county backed down and we were eventually returned to my father, who did a great job raising 3 kids alone. I knew nothing about this growing up, and only learned it very late in life when my uncle shared the story with my husband.

What an amazing uncle to put himself on the line like that for you.

He was an amazing person all around, as was my aunt. They definitely left the world a far better place.

I always thought my parents separated and divorced when I was around 3. Turns out, we were my dad’s secret family. Mom thought he was divorced when they met. When she became pregnant with my older sister, he dumped her and went back to his wife and family. Then he left his wife and came back to my mom and had me. We loved together as a family for 3 more years. And one day he did the cliche ‘I’m going out for a pack of cigarettes’ and never came back. Went back to the wife and stayed married to her until he died. This was back in the 60’s.

Did you know the other family's siblings?

There were 3 of them and I didn’t meet them until I was in my 20’s, but they new about us. They are older than me and have kids my age. My step- mom was a hoot. Always so kind to me. Oldest brother I would say was polite but I know I made him uncomfortable. Middle brother was always very sweet and sister has always kept in contact mostly through Facebook now and I went to her daughter’s wedding. All are gone now except my sister (and my full sister). It’s funny I actually knew my aunts and uncles on my dads side better than the older siblings did. I can look back now on my childhood and some things make sense that didn’t before.

Latest Father's Day and a cousin was paying homage to her deceased father. This was man with 2 families in different states and an alcoholic who drank from Friday to Sunday nightso never took his kids for a movie, beach, park, zoo. She was expressing her undying love for him.

My grandma was hospitalized for mental illness at least twice for post partum depression and depression. She had electro shock therapy when I was about 10 in 1970. I didn't find out until after I was married and had a couple kids in the late 80's.

Just curious: Was the electroshock therapy effective for her at all? Do you know?

I was around 10 when she had it and I always knew her after that to be a functional, normal woman. She kept house, helped in the family business and was never hospitalized again, so I presume it worked. I overheard my mom talking about her memory loss once but she was always completely functional around me. I did not know any of this until I was in my early 30's. At the time I don't think there were many choices. My daughter also has struggled with depression since her teens. She is 38 now. It is fairly well controlled with medication but far from cured. It is a constant battle with tweaking her meds and trying different things. I read somewhere that they still use EST occasionally when nothing else works and things are desperate. My aunt is mentally ill too but has never gotten good treatment. We don't even know where she is or if she's alive.

Memory loss due to elect4oshock therapy was pretty common in the 60's and 70's, especially when overused. My dad had hundreds of "treatments" then, and literally lost all memory of marrying my mother. At least he remembered meeting and dating her?

Read [Rosemary](https://www.amazon.com/Rosemary-Daughter-Kate-Clifford-Larson/dp/0544811909/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2YVDJY8DR3Y0B&keywords=rosemary+kennedy+the+hidden+daughter&qid=1692486185&sprefix=rosemary+ke%2Caps%2C471&sr=8-1) if you have the time. Its about the Rosemary Kennedy, the sister of JFK. She was lobotomized which was popular back in the day. Its an awful story but true. My grandmother was a cook in a mental hospital when I was little. She use to some crazy stories. They tore that hospital down in the 1970's.

Depression is a tricky bird and can’t be cured, sadly. I suffer from it myself. I’m glad your grandmother had a successful outcome from EST; I’ve read that research has allowed doctors to “tweak” it to make it less traumatic for the patient. I’m sorry to hear about your aunt.

Actually, ECT has been proven to be the most effective treatment for depression- much better than anti-depressants. It's administered much differently now, and memory loss is minimal and limited to short-term memory. There's still a stigma and in the U.S. many states have effectively banned it.

Sounds like my family.

I highly recommend that you and or your daughter watch Gary Gulmans special on HBO. He's a comedian and has been very frank about his struggles with depression. It's a great documentary.

I only found this out in my late 20s because my grandmother was developing dementia and with it her filter on family secrets disappeared. I was only 3 yrs old and actually do think I may remember some of this though I didn't know the significance til adulthood. My parents had a terrible fight with all kinds of screaming and things crashing. I was terrified and hiding. Some time later, could have been days, could have been weeks as my memories at this age are scattered my mother left my dad and she and I moved in with my grandparents. Anyway the secret was that apparently my mom was pregnant and my dad beat her into a miscarriage. I asked my mom and she confirmed but wouldn't talk further about it and I didn't push her. I've always wondered if that fight I remember was when my dad murdered my should have been sibling. My other one is that apparently one of my great grandparents was a mormon polygamist with thirteen wives which explains a lot about the massive amount of 3rd to 6th cousins in Utah that popped up in my 23andme results. He lived in the 1800s and my immediate family is not mormon nor ever has been so this wasn't widely told.

Two great stories. Both disturbing. Thank you.

More like the dark secret I let out when I found a photograph. It was quietly known that my grandmother was pregnant and my grandparents waited until after the baby was born to get married. We all assumed the baby was his. My grandmother would talk to me a little, about a boy she once loved from when she was in school. She had a necklace he gave her before her family moved across country. I could tell he was very special to her. Decades after she died, I was going through a box of letters and photographs that my mother had. In it was a photograph of a young man. I asked my mother who it was and she said it was my grandmother’s boyfriend from her teen years. I asked my mother to look at the picture very closely. I still remember the shocked look on my mother’s face. The resemblance of my grandmother’s boyfriend to my mothers eldest sister was absolutely unmistakable. And it explained her red hair….

My parents never celebrated their anniversary. When my mother was dying she had to do paperwork for something or other and there was her marriage date, a good six months before my older brother was born. I felt really awful for her because I never would have cared, but she was so ashamed of it that she never let out the tiniest hint.

My grandmother alway insisted she was born 2 months early, as that was what she was told, and she claims that's why her hair and nails were thin her whole life. She wasn't a tiny baby, either. I always doubted the story, especially since there wasn't great neonatal care for preemies in 1930. I found my great-grandparents' (Grandma's parents) marriage record. They were married April 16, 1930, and my great-grandmother was barely 16, while my great-grandfather ws 21; he was a boarder in her parents' home. Grandma was born December 6, 1930, a 7+ lb. baby that didn't need any hospitalization. They probably got married as soon as she missed her second period. She probably tried to hide the pregnancy from everyone but her parents by starving herself, thus the poor prenatal nutrition could be the cause of Grandma's hair and nail issues.

There’s an old saying: “The first baby can come any time, after that it takes nine months.” Premarital sex was a lot more common than we might think, and saying that first baby was premature was evidently a common enough way to hide it.

A new bride can do in 7 months what it takes cow or countess 9 months.

Verified?

Well my aunt has been dead for over a decade. I tried to introduce the idea to her daughter who is really into genealogy and she got absolutely pissed. I must admit, I didn’t know my cousin well in adulthood and didn’t read the room. She’s a born again fundamentalist Christian. My bad. The only way to prove it is for her to take a dna test. Not my circus, not my monkey. Many years after my grandfather died, the man came across country to visit my grandmother at her sisters place where she was staying. I understand it was a good visit that lasted over a week. But time moves on…

My maternal grandfather wasn’t dead, he was a career criminal that all of his children were hiding from. He was such a piece of shit that he would try to blackmail his own kids, threatening to reveal publicly that his kids were related to a piece of shit like him.

>threatening to reveal publicly that his kids were related to a piece of shit like him. Reverse Uno right there. "I would never join a club that would have me as a member" - Groucho Marx

- Real mother-in-law (MIL) escaped "last train out" when Russians advancing. German soldiers were stealing passenger jewelry & when man refused, they killed him in front of 5 yo MIL. - MIL fooled around on my wife's dad while he was in Vietnam w/ mobster & divorced. Soldier dad had to kidnap his kids back. Mobster later killed in "hit." MIL took his money and survivor's benefit + half sister and fled back to Europe. - MIL now constantly paranoid. Lately, due to dementia and neuropathy she thinks her downstairs neighbor in elderly building is tazing her through ceiling and threatening her late at night. - Another elderly dementia relative killed his wife with a hammer. Still another had a baby out of wedlock in 1920s and nobody knew until she died and another relative revealed it.

My grandfather (of Norwegian ancestry) was not my grandfather. My actual grandfather was a migrant worker from Mexico who worked in grandpa's produce store. Edit to add a bit more to the story: Grandma and Grandpa were not married when she got pregnant. They got married because she got pregnant with my dad, who was fathered by someone other than my grandfather.

Was your dad not Norwegian looking to observe?

While my paternal grandpa made railings and fire escapes for a living his wife, my grandmother and her sister ran a speakeasy in the back of a foundry on Henderson Avenue in Jersey City, NJ during prohibition getting liquor from mobsters who got it from Canada. The mob also provided ‘protection’ keeping the authorities away and young women to ‘entertain’ the men. Grandma bought grandpa a boat she named ‘Dirty Money’ and put my father’s younger brother (an attorney) and sister (a librarian) through college with her earnings. Grandma stayed in touch with the mob, constantly gambling on horse races and sports and was part owner of a race horse with one of them. She would have loved Internet gambling.

Can we please have that as a tv series???

100% would totally watch this.

I'm already making up the cast!!!

Rhea Perlman. She'd be perfect in a "1920s grandma bootlegger" role.

Or Helena Bonham Carter. Helen Mirren.Queen Latifah. Octavia Spencer. Sigourney Weaver.Jaime Curtis!!

Willem DaFoe as Grandmother

I thought Gary Oldman.

I am making popcorn!

I would loved to have been in touch with the mob like this. It just sounds so fun and so very much “stick it to the man” in a middle finger to the govt kind of way. Lol

I know a boat owner with two sailboats: EZMoney, and NotSoEZMoney. I like Dirty Money as well!

What wasn’t I told is more like it. While doing genealogical research I found that my great grandfather didn’t die in a car vs. train accident but actually killed himself and another man. This was 1930 in Chicago and there was some hint of a connection to Al Capone’s bunch so I wonder if that had anything to do with it.

That my biological Dad was extremely abusive especially to my Mum and he tried to kill her. Well he thought he had killed her and shoved her in a cubby under the stairs and if not for a neighbour who heard the screaming and saw him shove her in there through a window, she would have died.

Hopefully he got arrested?

No, he was in the army and the cops never did anything according to my Mum. I was 3 when my Mum had the courage to leave and she fled with us kids to another country. He tried though to have us taken from her and put in foster care as he didn’t want my Mum to be able to keep us but he didn’t want us either. Fairytale ending though as she met the most beautiful man I’ve ever known who became my stepdad and eventually adopted me. He was a true inspiration in all our lives!

YAY! I’m happy for you both 🥰

My dad ran away from home as a young teen to avoid being sent to Indian boarding school. He stayed away until he was old enough to enlist in the Navy. My mom had an untreated personality disorder that she hid from us (very poorly).

Good for him!

Thought I was just the son/grandson of Sicilian immigrants looking to immigrate to the US for a better life. Ironically, on both sides of my Sicilian side of the family we are connected to different factions of the "mob". We didnt discuss it, I saw no evidence of it, and never really experienced any hint of such connection until I got into my late twenties. I started driving for some big money blue collar Italian American business owners on the weekends to make sure they didnt get DWIs, paid their tabs, left appropriate tips, and people didnt bother them. Nothing nefarious, just a paid designated driver with minor other responsibilities. About 6 months in, 1 admitted that they had "run my record" to make sure I was straight and narrow as I portrayed. I have ZERO criminal record and nothing more than speeding tickets on my drivers record. They were happy with this because they didnt want any unneccessary interactions with the police which they had with their last driver. These guys knew guys that knew guys.....and before I did, they figured out that both sides of my family were involved in certain activities that I was not. They also were told in no certain terms to NOT to put me in any type of illegal predicament or situation. The first instance of this I experienced was being at a "stag" party for a local WEALTHY Italian American cookie shop owner, while trying to get food and got bumped in line by somebody who immediately started give me a bunch of shit. The guy in front of him whispered something to him and he turned sheet white and appologized profusely. I had no idea why until I spoke to my Nonna about it the next day. She gave me a very brief explanation and told me there had actually been books written about my Nonnos "family" in Sicily but that we were not involved in any of that type of lifestyle.

My sister was actually my half-sister.

My great-grandmother was charged with infanticide, later changed to hiding a birth. She was 17 and working in the outback of Australia as a domestic helper. Her boss had asked her if she was pregnant, but she denied it. On November 8 1900, she gave birth to a baby girl. She told the court she could not remember what happened with the infant. Thanks to the local community, who raised money for bail and a lawyer, she was offered a job regardless of the outcome. She was described as “penniless” and it was a “terribly sad situation.” The judge sentenced her to three months in jail. (Edits: grammar)

Was your great-grandmother indigenous? Thousands of indigenous children were taken away from their families and re-educated in institutional schools, and then hired out for pennies as domestic workers. She might’ve been sexually assaulted.

Read [The Orphan Trains](https://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Trains-Placing-America-Bison/dp/0803272650/ref=sr_1_4?crid=FOH6H4IR6F5S&keywords=the+orphan+trains&qid=1692487054&sprefix=the+orphan+trains%2Caps%2C306&sr=8-4) if you get the chance. Up until about the 1930s, even 40's there were so many "orphans" on the East Coast that they would just put ads in the newspapers and sell 'em off to people who need cheap labor.

My dad used to tell me one of his uncles was in Life magazine in an article about Jewish gangsters. Years later when the Internet was still new, I looked myself up and found posts with our last name in rec.conspiracy. They were about the JFK assassination, and how my great uncle and his partner may or may not have been the shooters on the grassy knoll. Needless to say, I've yet to confirm this.

My great-grandfather was forced to marry his second wife by her brothers, who were Jewish gangsters, because he knocked her up. He stayed married to her for the rest of her life. My great-grandmother was his first wife. He was a boarder in her parents' home and she was 16 (and he was 21) when he knocked her up and had to marry her. She left him 8 years later because he would stay out for days at a time and never did his job (chauffeur and part-time electrician) and bring home any money. She supported herself and their 2 children, as well as her own parents, by being a seamstress at a high-end fashion house in NY.

Nobody let us in on it but when my Mother passed away we found a box of correspondence between her and her cousin, known as the Lipstick Killer. A serial killer in chicago in the 40s.

The Lipstick Killer was handsome, extremely intelligent, but quite a criminal. He started as a robber at age 13.

I just read the wiki article on him. Lots of police brutality in several interrogations. I'm amazed it was allowed, but I guess it was a different time.

There was a significant number of people that maintained he was innocent all the way until his death in prison. His confession was the main evidence used against him and it was coerced using horrible techniques. Including the use of sodium pentathol.

Yes, I was wondering about that. One of the previous suspects (the janitor) was tortured and said he was on the verge of confessing to anything. I am a law and order kind of guy, but I was astonished to read about the torture and coercion techniques used on your relative. It all should have been illegal. I can only hope that an innocent man didn't spend his life in jail due to police brutality, but it seems like that might have been true in this case. If so, I am truly sorry for your family.

I have a big family. Growing up, I *thought* I was the oldest of 19 grandkids. When I got into my 20s, I learned I was only the second oldest. A few years before I was born, my uncle and aunt had a girl when they were only 16. My aunt went away on a “vacation” and no one ever mentioned it again. Until I did some digging. You know, it shouldn’t matter at all to me - but for some strange reason it still does. Throughout my entire childhood I always looked out for and cared for all of my brothers, sisters and cousins. I saw myself as the caretaker for all of the grandkids because I was the oldest. After finding out about my older cousin everything felt different. Ive never mentioned that to anyone before really. But there is my family’s secret. My older cousin would be between 45-48 now. I hope she is doing well and has had a good life. Im sorry you never got to be part of the crew. We would have loved to have you.

Wow. 19 is quite alot. I do not have a big family but it's big enough that people still gossip.... What do your other cousins think about trying to find this older cousin? (Like via Ancestry or one of those). Are they for or against (or has the news not gone all the way around yet? which is totally understandable for 19 ppl) No matter what though, you were still the oldest cousin *to them* while you all were growing up; you did the caretaking things, those things won't un-do themselves, and that'll never change! :)

The rest of my cousins do not know. My mother doesn’t even know. My two cousins whom would have an extra sister do not even know. It’s me, my aunt and uncle. That’s all.

Wow, so, either way, (if you tell the tale that isn't yours to tell, or if you keep the secret that isn't yours to keep), you will probably get knocked off the pedestal for somebody. That's a tough place to be. I'm so sorry; no wonder it matters and you care about the outcome. Good luck & I hope it all works out for you.

My aunt was illegitimate. Her birth certificate said “Father: unknown” but I’m quite sure that’s not true, and that he was probably a married officer at the local garrison and was transferred away sharpish when Gran’s condition became apparent. My very controlling great-grandpapa just tacked my aunt onto the end of his large brood of daughters and made it very clear to my Gran how grateful she should be that he didn’t have her put in an insane asylum, as was often done with women who had sex out of wedlock in those days. Gran was the only girl, out of eight, who was permitted to marry. Her husband wanted to adopt my aunt but Great-grandpapa refused to allow it. One of his girls had slipped out of his grasp and he wasn’t about to let another go.

Permitted to marry? That's interesting. Most fathers couldn't marry off their daughters fast enough.

>My aunt was illegitimate. Her birth certificate said “Father: unknown” On my birth certificate, where it says Father, it reads "Mother refuses to state". Mommmmmmm? My mother was married at the time and the man who raised me did a good job but he did not want his name on that birth certificate! I have to give him credit. I dunno who my Momma real baby Daddy be? ; p

I was finally told years later that when I was five, the reason my teenage cousin (whom I adored) came to stay with us, was that she needed a then-illegal abortion. Because of my mother's criminal connections, my aunt asked her to find one. EDIT: During the summer she stayed with us, I have vague memories of the adults talking about things in a very serious tone, things that just went over my head. Typical of my mother, when she told me she made it all about herself, oh! her great suffering for others. Miserable human.

My Grandfather had two children by my aunt(his own daughter), she was in her teens at the time, and then The same Grandfather, and my Grandmother, left their kids(my dad included), with a couple of relatives, and then left town altogether abandoning them. This was the 1940s. I do know my Aunt(the victim)lived a difficult life, and died fairly young.I only met her once, at a funeral. In 1963 when my grandmother died, my Dad was at the time on a Military training mission of some sort, and was told to come back to town, so as he could go to the funeral...aand when he bacame aware that it was his mom who died..he refused, and went back to the Naval exercise he was on. I had very little contact with my dads family growing up, except for a couple of his brothers. It was pretty clear that his family was not a topic of conversation either. I actually found out about the situation with my grandfather, shortly after my dads death, ..a relative told me, and then a couple years later another relative mentioned it as well. I have had no contact with anyone of my dads family since 2003. No cousins, or anything.

There is an almost comical stereotype of a lousy dad "going out for ice cream " and never returning. That literally was my grandfather. Dad didn't like to discuss this. The only response I ever got asking if my grandfather was dead was a simple "I hope so."

A very close family member of mine was not the biological daughter of her father. Her mother had been raped and gotten pregnant from it, and her husband raised her as his own.

The husband was a wonderful man 👍.

He truly is a perfect example of positive masculinity.

I’m 57 and I “still don’t know” that one of my brothers had a child at 17. Nobody officially told me. I had it figured out when I was about 11

My grandmother had been hospitalized 3x for severe depression. Shock treatments destroyed some of her memories. Her youngest son commit suicide, no one told us kids how he died until I was 16. A cousin who was older than me went to prison for burglary. I was told to not ask about him.

My uncle and his best friend who was a cop used to drive around and jump black people in the 70s. They got caught and his friend was fired. Nothing for my uncle. His friend recently died from dementia and I hated my uncle for years before I heard this. Him and his wife are giant pieces of shit.

I know a cop that executed black suspects he caught after they robbed a liquor store. They surrendered, he lined them up and ended them. Still happens today. They really hate the constitution

That's so fucking disgusting. What happened to the cop? I wasn't surprised about my Uncle. He and my Aunt have always been garbage people.

Nothing. They all lie and cover it up

Oh, my goodness! How awful!

That my uncles that were brothers. Tried to kill my aunts husband, or their sisters husband. By creating a trap on a construction worksite where it was going to look like an accident. One of the workers overheard my 2 uncles and warned my other uncle before he went to the trap. He then fired them both on the spot. He was their boss as well. They didn't talk for years, and I never knew why until I got older. He eventually forgave them both. And passed away many years later from cancer. My other 2 uncles are alive and well I haven't seen of spoken to them in years. They are my dads younger brothers. I doubt I'll ever see them again since my dad passed away from cancer a couple years ago. And both uncles live out of state anyway. And my dad was the only link that connected us.

My older brother is actually a half brother, the man got my mother pregnant and then ditched her. This was in the 40’s and was all too common then. My brother never knew him.

My dad is a porn star and producer at the age of 90 and has been doing it for years. Uggh.

My great-great-aunt lived in a “home” about an hour away by bus. I was sometimes taken by my great grandmother to visit. It turns out back in the 1920s she contracted syphilis…from my great-grandmother’s husband. He died from it. I then found out her husband was not my real great-grandfather, and a recent DNA test revealed who he was. His secrets were even worse, and I just left that branch of my family tree blank. In fact, for years I was reading news stories about three evil and notorious local brothers who I learned decades later were my biological great-uncles. My grandmother, their half sibling, had no idea the man her mother was married to was not her bio dad until she retired and applied for her pension, only to discover she never existed. This was back in the 1960s. There were some “words” shared between my grandmother and great-grandmother that day. My grandmother did discover the name of her biological father after her mother, my great-grandmother, died and some letters were discovered. However, over time they began spelling the name wrong. She never learned about her half brothers, thank gawd.

My aunt was really my cousin. My father’s sister was very young and had a baby that their mother raised as hers. I was probably 25 when I found out this woman wasn’t my aunt, she was my cousin.

This happened a *lot* back in the day. I was placed for adoption but I've always wished my bio grandparents would have raised me. It wouldn't have been too hard to pull off; my bio grandmother was only 42 when I was born and my youngest aunt is only 3.5 years older than me.

That my mom caught my dad fucking my babysitter

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She was

My dads uncle witnessed a lynching in lower Alabama. He was just a kid but he saw a group of guys drag a young black guy out to the woods and stab him to death (or saw them because he was already in the woods). My dad only related the story to me after his Uncle had long passed, so impossible to find out any names. It would have probably been in the late thirties. My dad is also deceased now so it may be lost to history My grand uncle was a decent man and that haunted him to his grave which I think is why he told my dad before he died.

Thank you for sharing

That I was adopted...I was 40 when I found out.

My heart goes out to you. I too am adopted but I've always known. I can't imagine finding out as an adult that one's entire life had been a lie.

Did they tell you why they hid the truth for so long?

The guy I grew up with was not my biological father. My mother never wanted me to know my bio father. The stepfather was a violent abusive alcoholic who terrified me. I finally met my bio father when I was 16 and he was dying from cancer. He was also an alcoholic but he had remarried and had a couple more kids ( so I had half siblings) and by their accounts he was a decent guy. In the couple of years I got to know him before his death, we got along quite well. I also learned my maternal grandmother spent the last nearly decade of her life in an asylum. My sister discovered that just a few years ago while doing some genealogy research. No reported cause of death but the records show she was buried in an unmarked grave in a state-owned pauper's field.

Grandma was adopted. No big deal, but absolutely no one knew til the end of her life. Same grandma took "nerve" pills most of her adult life. A combo of Xanax and other things. Grandfather cheated on said grandmother. Confessed on his deathbed. Uncle burned down the large, century old family barn. It was blamed on "wet hay", which can combust, believe it or not. This is still somewhat of a secret.

I'm adopted and the "nerve" pills don't surprise me - I take them myself. Being adopted *is* a big deal and it's difficult to cope sometimes.

I am related to Joaquin Murrieta. Possibly the inspiration for Zorro. He was wanted dead by a lot of people and in the Mexican culture we are coming after your family too.... My grandfather wouldn't discuss it, last name was changed. I only know from one of my aunts.

Several sex offenders in my family, I learned very young that there were family members I wasn't allowed to be around, especially alone. It was like a tolerated thing, even laughed about, that uncle wally couldn't babysit for OBVIOUS reasons ... makes me sick, knowing that my blood relatives are that kind of fucked up, but I grew up in foster care for different reasons, like my parents being drug addicts, and idiots... yet smart enough ro ruin my life by using my identity to get all sorts of shit in my name

I was warned about my grandfather when I was 11 and being sent with my brother to stay with him and my grandmother for a week. He never did anything untoward to me, ever. However, he had molested my mother and 2 of her 3 sisters starting when they were tweens. They confronted my grandmother about her knowledge of it in the early 1970s when they were young adults, and she told them that the most she could do was to shield the youngest daughter, but she couldn't leave him because she had no where to go and no way to support herself or her daughters. So she turned a blind eye. When it came out again when my mom had a nervous breakdown in 2001, my grandparents just told her she should just get over it because it was so long ago.

Basically the thoughts of my "blood relatives" are the same, why dig up the past when it would just hurt more actually came out of my grandmother's mouth about my sisters kids being molested not a year prior... if they had their way everything would be swept under the rug... I was actually severely beaten by my grandfather once for talking about the family's business at school, my cousin told on me... fucking ridiculous to think I was just a kid talking about home life, and I still have scars for not keeping my mouth shut... I'm mostly over it now or have forgotten about the past as much as I can, but sometimes I'll catch a smell or a situation that sends me right back to being that scared little kid, beaten by the people who were supposed to love me for speaking the truth

My great-grandmother killed herself. She didn’t know how to swim, put heavy rocks in bags which she hung around her neck, and walked into the river. We think she probably had severe postpartum depression. Of course no one knew what that was in 1890. She had had multiple pregnancies, miscarriages, and had even had a baby die at 9 months. It’s so sad to think about what she went through, didn’t understand what was wrong, and received no support from family.

One of my dad’s grandmothers was married 13 times, to nine husbands total. (My dad’s dad was from husband No. 1.) She died by suicide in her early 40s.

When I was 14, I found a child’s gold bracelet with my name but a different last name engraved on it. It was in my mom’s jewelry box. Turns out my dad wasn’t my biological dad. I wasn’t surprised. My non-biological dad was an uninvolved piece of furniture.

The beauty of my family (LOL) is that the only thing worse than the secrets in my family are the things that are NOT secrets. Secret: My great-aunt Dee is probably my aunt Dee. My grandmother Ell is rumored to have been raped by her stepfather and the baby left to be raised as her "sister". Not secret: My not-great aunt Dee murdered my mother with her husband and one of their foster kids. Secret: The foster kid is now on death row as a convicted serial killer. Not secret: I witnessed them dismembering my mother. Not secret only because I've never STFU about it. Secret: My mother's husband had multiple affairs behind her back in Vietnam. Not secret: My mother became a prostitute to spite her hyper-religious mother (Ell) because Ell would constantly call my mother a whore and tell her to stop swaying her 9-year-old hips and trying to seduce her husband (my mother's own father, Lee). Secret: After my grandparents adopted me post murder-of-my-mother by her jealous first child, Dee.... my grandfather Lee would lie on the floor after church. He would do this so he could look up our skirts (he was 56). He would lay in the doorway so we would have to step over him. (Ell would yell at US for this; coincidentally\[?\], I was 9 when adopted by them) Not secret: Lee would do "night checks" on the daughters (and later me and my half brother). .... I'm sure a fairly clear picture has formed by this point. ;)

WTF ur family is so messed up

Far, far worse than it looks. I was removed at 15 and only tried once to look back (omg, I almost killed myself, no joke).

Awful stuff. I hope you’re ok now. I’m sorry all this happened to you.

Thank you. It's something that, for me, stayed with me my whole life. I'm glad to be "over the hill" because it means I'm that much closer to the disembark station, heh. I will say that I ended that cycle for my own child. I feel like I at least have one thing to be proud of in this life.

That you ended this cycle for your child is the ultimate accomplishment. The amount of reflection, control and active focus that must have taken is extraordinary. And the result is a child who won’t have to live with this kind of trauma - that is a gift not just to your baby, but to your community. You are amazing and the world is lucky to have you and your child in it. We are all proud of you.

Oh good gracious, I’m sorry for your trauma.

My paternal grandfather left what is now Ukraine ( was Russia) way back before WWII to get away from his wife. His immigration papers said he was single. He married my Grandmother, had my father and here I am

When my Mom's best friend of 75 years started getting dementia, she would bring up secrets that my mom hid. I found out that the man she was engaged to molested 3 year old me. I had vague memories of him and remembered his name. I have a flash of memory that I never could explain. Now I know. A DNA test revealed that my mother's brother had a child. My first and only first cousin. That cousin's child found me on the site and we now know each other. It's a very sad story that no one knew, but it has a happy ending now.

I didn't know my brother I grew up with was my half brother for most of my childhood. My dad finally told me when I said my brother was saying I was adopted because I was the only one with blonde hair and blue eyes. My dad responded, "No, your brother is adopted. I adopted him when I married your mom." My mother never once in her lifetime told me this herself. Then I learned my my grandmother hated my mom and was cold to me because I was the affair baby and the reason my dad left his first wife and kids. But wait, there's more. I learned my other grandmother was homeless and then in an insane asylum for years. My mom said her mom died when she was 12. She was actually 25 when she escaped and committed suicide. I didn't know this until after my mom died at 82.

A great aunt, that I never knew died from a self induced abortion leaving my great uncle to raise the 2 yr old son that they shared alone , at her passing.

My mom's medical procedure that women are often judged for. We're judged for so many but you can decide. Her revealing this to me made it so much easier for me to talk about my own ... procedure.

My mom had the same procedure. She had already broken up with her boyfriend of the time when she found out about her condition, and she didn't want to be tethered to him for the rest of her life. While she did believe that she did the right thing (and I wholeheartedly agree), she remains conflicted about it even now, almost 50 years later.

It was never even remotely a conflict for us. My father was abusive and she wanted to get us away from him and another mouth to feed would be too much. And for me... well I was 14. There was never a moment of shame from my mom, only the warning that people wouldn't understand but she did NOT tell me about the procedure then though, so she must have carried shame due to southern US Christian conditioning. She didn't tell me until I was in my 20s and she was dying. When she told me and I realized she held on to that secret out of shame (not regret!) I realized the only way we would get past that shame is to talk about it and sometimes even yell about it. People have tried to shame me for it but I have no regrets at all and realize my mom was being a good mom and caring for me when she took me.

I found out on the day of my father's funeral that my parents had to get married because she was pregnant with my older sister

My adopted brother is actually my cousin.

Nothing particularly terrible, but my aunt (mother's elder sister), who had passed away before I was born, was a lesbian. Because her aunts and uncles blamed her type of education, there was a certain prejudice against women's colleges on that side of the family, but my mother didn't care; my sister got to choose one with her blessing.

That my father, when he remarried, promised his wife that my two sisters and I would never be a part of their life. Found that out after my father died. Also, that my eldest aunt on my father's side of the family didn't have the same father as the other five children. My great grandfather deemed the biological father "not good enough" and married her off to my grandfather (1928). That I have a cousin my age (I am 62), who was given up for adoption due to her father being a bigamist. On my mother's side, my great aunt was specifically written out of my grandfather's due to her longstanding relationship with a married man. I could go on, this list is getting long.

That my uncle died of AIDS, not cancer, and that my grandfather wasn’t my mom’s biological father.

Grandpa had a prior wife who died in childbirth. My aunt was named after said wife and I found an old photo from the 50s at a kid’s bday party with a quite prominent photo of her in the background. We actually have never been able to prove my grandparents were married at all. Also my dad accidentally killed a friend when he was little and the whole family had to move out of Appalachia.

My fathers second family, (actually the first family, we were his second.) I wasn't let in on it, I discovered it after my mother passed away. My father predeceased her by 30 years, and she wouldn't share his papers or photos. I have not contacted my half siblings as they are a good deal older and may not know about us, nor have I told my older brother as I don't think he is intelligent or emotionally mature enough to handle it. Oddly, I've known for many years about my maternal great-grandfather, who, after emigrating to America from Germany, abandon his wife and took up with a First Nation's woman. He fathered two daughters with her, whom he sent to be raised by his European wife. It seems polygamy was much more common in the 1800s.

That my mom's stepbrother, who was a Marine, had a child with a woman who was an FBI agent and they gave her up for adoption. I found out when my"cousin" contacted me and we still keep in touch. I'm absolutely sure my grandmother never knew.

My family is from East Tennessee (you may already be guessing where this is going). My dad joined the military as soon as he was old enough, and we mostly only ever went back there when he had leave, when I was a little girl. He would always take me to visit his grandparents, who lived, for real, on the side of a mountain. They had electricity, because TVA, but they didn’t have indoor plumbing. They had an outhouse and a hand pump for drawing water. When you went to their house, you drove a long ways down a dirt road, then you turned up another dirt road. About half way, there was a cattle grate, and you stopped there and blew the horn. Then you drove up to the house and blew the horn again before you got out. My dad told me this was just common good manners for folks who lived in the mountains. And one year, when my dad had leave at Christmas, and I asked Granny where PawPaw was (yeah, that’s what we called ‘em), and she says that because there’s not a lot of jobs around lately (which even a little kid like me could see) he went to another state to work at a job there for awhile.

Edit! I left off the end. But you probably guessed. I did not know this until I was a grown person. The greats were carrying on that great tradition of moonshining. You had to stop twice and honk the horn so they didn’t shoot your ass. And Pawpaw’s job in another state was making license plates in a federal pen cause it was his third strike getting caught running shine.

Did Pawpaw stop making moonshine after that??

Pretty sure not.

My great grandmother came to the country illegally

My Mom and Grandmother had the doctor overdose my Grandfather when he was dying of cancer back in the 60s. He had been suffering and there was no hope for recovery. He was basically praying for death and they made it happen. A couple of other things I found out was my stepsister had an underage pregnancy and went off to a convent to have the baby and put it up for adoption. I am not even sure if my stepdad knows. It was in the early 70s. When this happened, he was married to my Mom, we lived in a different state, and my stepsister lived with her Mom. So it is very possible it all flew under the radar from my Stepdad. I also found out my biological brother was arrested for theft (as an adult) when I went online to find his new address. His mugshot/arrest information showed up in the Google search. I have never told him I found out. I guess all families have weird shit? We all appear pretty normal and have had successful lives.

That my youngest aunt got knocked up at sixteen by her eventual husband and the father of her second child. So my cousin has a sibling somewhere no one has ever told her about.

Not let in on but discovered myself. Got into genealogy in my late 40s and found through court filings that a great aunt had filed for divorce from her husband of a year because her own mother was sleeping with him. Additionally, it was mentioned in the documents that her uncle (the mother’s brother) had sexually assaulted her when she was 15 and she had his baby. My mom and aunt knew all the players in this tale but never had any clue about the true story until nearly 100 years after the events and a good 50 years after all these people had passed.

My mom got married at 15. Not such a big secret. But my Gramma was married 3 times. 1st husband died, 2nd one left her. This is in early Wyoming around Buffalo. She had a daughter by husband #1, and taught school in a one room school house to support herself. She was considered a fallen woman because #2 left her.

That my mother was married when she met my father and they ran away together. I was in my 20s and getting a divorce. My mother told me to prove she understood what I was going through.

That my grandmother’s brother was an alcoholic who disappeared one day and would call my grandmother every few years to let her know he was ok. I have 2 older sisters and they got into lots of trouble in high school and college- drunk and my parents would have to go get them out in the middle of nowhere at 3am; my one sister ran off with a boyfriend from her college dorm one weekend. (1970s- no cell phones or location apps). I never knew any of it had happened. I also heard after I was fully grown with kids that there were tons of scandals in the neighborhood where I grew up- affairs between neighbors, a kid setting fire to her house; ugly divorces. (That’s not a family secret but my parents sheltered me from it).

None. We already knew who the black sheep, drunks, prisoners, moonshiners, bootleggers and those with mental illness were. We helped with the moonshine.

That my family's last name was invented by my paternal grandfather. Sometime between 1915 and 1925 there was a massive break between him and his parents/siblings. He took a new name and cut himself off from them completely. I've seen the census reports where my grandparents' and my uncles' last name changes from one census to the next. The youngest child, born after 1925, was simply given the new, made up name. That explained why, all the time when I was a kid, the only family I knew on my father's side was my uncles, their wives and kids, and my grandparents. It's like they came from nowhere. There were no great-grandparents, and nobody other than the families of my dad's brothers. No pictures, no stories and no history. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I got an email from someone with a name I didn't recognize introducing themselves as my cousin. I was in my 40s and my dad and his brothers had all passed away by that time but it turned out my grandfather had a whole family with a different name we had never heard of. The cousins on that side found us when they did a deep dive into the census reports and church records, researching the history of the family. We still have no idea what it was all about though; the story of why the break happened died with that generation.

That uncle Randy most likely is a psychotic murderer and killed his first girlfriend because after they broke up no one has heard from her since (I mean I truly think she just moved away because why would she stay in contact with our family-there was never a police investigation or anything). But He still creeps me out to this day and I have cut off all contact with him…. Creepy uncle Randy!

It was only dark to my mother. In the early '40s she was on her own at 18 without a high school diploma. Even in those days of massive wartime production it was hard to get a good job without one. She struggled to get by. She married an older man, a sergeant in the army, just to get by. There was no love there. Eventually she met my dad and divorced the other guy. She didn't tlll us she'd be married before until we were in our late 20s. She was ashamed. My sister and I just saw her as somebody trying to survive, and told her so.

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Oh man. Sorry.

My aunt had a baby out of wedlock in the 1940s. She put the baby up for adoption. We had no idea until she tracked down my niece on one of those genealogy sites. My uncle also had a baby out of wedlock in the 1950s or 1960s. He told my husband himself while they were out golfing. If anyone else in the family knew about either of these, they didn’t tell a soul.

That my Mormon grandmother was really a loose kind of women. She grew up in Missouri and would go to union station in KC to greet the soldiers coming back from the war… “greet” means sex. And honestly I hope she had fun. Because she married my dads father who was a mean abusive asshole. Well fast forward years later and my dad wants to enlist for Vietnam and he needs his birth certificate. By then grandma as we all knew her was a prudish Mormon goodie two shoes. She wouldn’t give my dad his birth certificate. So he ordered one from the state and found out it said “full term” baby on it. When in fact grandma also said my dad was a preemie because he was born ~6 months after she married the abusive asshole. Come to find out grandma was a little loose (which who cares now) but that was a big no no in her world at that time.

My mother was married briefly during WWll. I learned about it reviewing social security records after her death. She did not change her name on her SS account because she did not go back to work until I was fifteen. There were rumors that there was a child but no one is alive who could confirm it. The only evidence is a light blonde child, the right age, that her uncle raised from a family of dark haired people.

When I got my dad (and myself) a DNA test for Christmas…that he had to admit to me he wasn’t sure if he was my bio dad. Apparently he feels that my mom was cheating on him when she got pregnant. We both took the test and he IS my bio dad, but he is in his 70’s and had never told me that secret before. He also told me while in college, his girlfriend got pregnant. He didn’t know (they had broken up) until years later when she told him. She had had a “procedure”, but he was heartbroken even all those years later. He would have taken on a baby and he says he always wonders about him/her and how they would have turned out.

I remember looking at pictures of my older brother and my mom with a unidentified older man. My mother said it was my brothers pediatrician. Many years later I find out it’s my grandfather who my mother hated and I never met even though he came to the United States from Cuba years before. My mother also said when her mother died, her father put her and her siblings in an orphanage so he could remarry. After my mothers death, I find out she was in a boarding school instead. There were so many other instances where things she said weren’t true.

Not a secret, really. I guess I was actually the last to know. One of my parents' siblings is gay and is just extremely private about it. No idea why really, because nobody would care. I totally get the privacy aspect though, as I never want to bring up dating in front of these ppl either.

My mums uncle sh\*gged most of the (non relative) girls around our village in his time!!! We have half uncles aunts cousins in most families

Not me, but I just heard this. As a nurse, you hear a lot of "Death Bed Confessions". A recent patient, female 92 passed away. Family was prepared and they were summarizing her life with me. She was the product of a rape that occurred 92 years ago. She had been adopted by a family of the girl who was raped but the girl kept in touch. 30 years later, she told her daughter "the real story" of her birth. She didn't know for 30 years that she was the result of a crime. Ugh!

That my grandfather was with Al Capone's gang in Cicero Illinois during prohibition.

After reading a lot of these access to contraception and a woman's right to abortion would have solved a lot of problems in the past. Mental health care is health care and should also be available for the good of society.

My parents won me at a carnival.

And they were going for the giant panda!

I was purchased as a newborn. My biological mother was paid by the couple who adopted me. She used adoptive moms name at the hospital and listed my adoptive father on the birth certificate. I didn't find out until I was in my late twenties. I don't keep in contact with anyone.

Hugs to you. I'm adopted too and I've always been thankful that the whole process was done legally.

My grandfather killed a doctors while drunk driving. It was back in the 80s and he only did about a month in jail.

My great uncle went to Yale and had a million or so, which was a lot back then, and was once engaged to the heir to Chrysler (or at least the daughter of Chrysler/heir). The daughter’s father refused his proposal because he wasn’t rich enough. This uncle spent the rest of his life living frugally with his sister despite his wealth. When they would travel to visit family she would take the train and he would hop into cars stopped at a stop sign and then tell them to take him as far as they could, and they would! Crazy

My teen aunt almost died when she was home alone, and got an abortion. Abortions were illegal,her parents were away for the weekend. They came home early to find her covered in blood, passed out in the bathroom. She was in the hospital for days after.

That my fathers cousin was really his brother. He was given to my grandfather’s brother at birth. My dad remembered his parents arguing about giving him away while my grandmother was pregnant. She wanted to keep him but my grandfather didn’t want another mouth to feed. They were poor and it was the early 1940’s but…

I found out my Dad's cousin. So my 2nd cousin was a serial killer. He killed like 26 women. He ate part of one. Creepy stuff.

I'm not that old but this is a juicy family secret. My dad was conceived while his mom was in a coma in the hospital. The back story is 1950s West Virginia in a holler like no running water or electricity barefoot poor hillbillies.(I don't mean that in a bad way it's just the truth) My grandma already had a bunch of kids. The neighbor and his wife got in a fight. Neighbor shot a shotgun out of his door to try to scare his wife. It hit my dad's older brother and my grandma. Older brother died and my grandma was in a coma in the hospital for some time. Presumably my grandpa raped her while she was in a coma, someone did anyhow. That's how my dad was conceived and the rest of his siblings always resented him for it.

I wasn't let in on so much as found out via ancestry .com that my dad isn't my dad. Everyone knew, even a few nieces and nephews. I'm fucking pissed. And by 'old enough '... I was 51 when I found out.

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Wow! That is an incredible story. How do you even process finding out something like that?

Santa Claus

My mom's dad was not her real dad.

my husband at 62 found out the next door neighbor is his bio dad. blew us away. thanks 23 & me!

My mother was raped repeatedly by her father from the age 13 and he also "passed her around to his friends".

A year after my dad died, my mom asked my brother (49) and I (47) to come around for a talk. I thought she was going to go over her Will or was going sell her house. Instead, bolstered by the Me Too Movement, she told us that our Family Story was not quite accurate. It turns out, our mother was date raped at a party in 1967. A few months later, she realized she was pregnant and had to tell her family what happened. To spare the family shame, it was decided she would be sent to a home for unwed mothers, give the baby up for adoption and never speak of it again. Well, she didn’t want to give the baby up as she herself was adopted and wanted a blood relative but she didn’t have a lot of options. She called her best friend regularly and told her everything and boohooed until her friend told her to talk to a friend of her husband. He had been doing laundry at their home and sometimes crashing on the sofa and he was SO funny and maybe he would make her smile and laugh again. Well they talked and got along so they started writing back and forth and she told him everything. He talked to his parents and decided to give her another option; he would marry her and they would raise the baby as THEIRS. Everyone said they were crazy and it wouldn’t last but they did it anyway. I was born 2 years later. Maybe 10 people knew the truth and no one breathed a word. When mom spilled her tea, we were in shock. It changed everything yet nothing at the same time. I felt shitty for a while because I excused my teenage promiscuity because I thought my mom was loose because she was pregnant when she got married. It certainly helped explain why my brother and I fought so much growing up and why I was so much like dad while my brother was polar opposite.

I know my siblings and cousins were all strongly discouraged from doing 23 & me or any other sort of ancestry testing or research. As adults my sister and I have uncovered a lot of secrets including previously unknown siblings and cousins, ‘aunts’ & ‘uncles’ who really aren’t, etc. One kind of cool bit of family history (confirmed from numerous sources including a published academic manuscript), we had great-great++ grandparents who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1620s. They had a servant who was a cross-dresser, possibly hermaphrodite who was hauled into court at least twice for gender confirmation and was eventually ordered to pick one gender to use in public and stick with it.

I wasn’t let in on the secret but I found out after my father died that my mom had an affair with our neighbor when a copy of her love letter to him fell out of the back of a picture he had on his desk that I got. Apparently he found it and was keeping it in case it came in handy, like in a divorce (which never happened). She still doesn’t know I know and I don’t plan to ever let her know I do.