What family mystery would you like to solve?

[livingonaprairie]

Just watching Who Do You Think You Are and have always loved finding out family stories. If you were ever famous enough to be on the show, what would you like to find out? For me it would be investigating my granny's family
We found out shortly after she died thar the person we thought was her father (who was still alive when I was little) actually wasn't. He was the father of her 6 siblings but she was the oldest one and born illegitimately at the end of WW1 and he took her on as his own. I'd love to find out about my actual great grandad and his family but we'll never be able to because we don't have any information at all. Are there any interesting family stories/rumours you would love to learn more about if you were famous enough for WDYTYA?

I didn't find out until quite recently that my nan and granddad weren't actually married when their first child was born (this was in the 1940s so quite scandalous). I still don't know the whole story, but I believe he was married before and his first wife ran off and left him. I guess he was able to get a divorce eventually because he and my nan did get married a few years later.

My nan, who more or less brought me up and who was full of stories about many things, never mentioned any of this at all. I'd love to know what really happened and what it was like to be in that situation at that time.

Dh grandfather is unknown. Rumours he was a GI. His granny was a single mother caught up in turmoil of WW2 in Germany and never told. Mil weirdly is not interested in who her father is!

Dh and his brother both extremely tall and well built entirely different build to all the men on his dad’s side. Dh is also extremely intelligent and academic and the rest of his family… are not.

My dad (who I'm NC with) had at least two sons that were given up for adoption before he met my mum. social services removed them, and an aunt offered to have them, but my dad refused saying if he couldn't have them no one in the family could. I had a name of one of them and was massively curious in my teens, I was told at 13 that they'd died in a house fire. (I think mainly to stop me asking about them). Everyone who I could ask is now gone.

I believe my dad also fathered a child when he was 15. I've got a fair few half siblings and I have no idea who they are.

My belief is that they left her with her grandparents and meant to get her once settled, but they were poor ( my grandfather worked in a quarry) and had many children so couldn't afford to travel there and back. My grandmother never spoke of her or of the children she lost stillborn or from an accident, aged 4.
My grandfather died before I was born but I have heard that he was a great dad, I have fond memories of my grandmother; she had a life full of tragedies but she was a strong woman. She taught me resilience. I still miss her, 30 years after her death.

@Augustisnearlydonesogoodbyesun can you order your Grandfather's death certificate? It would give a cause of death and answer your question?

Lots

Paternal line was my GF a bigamist? Found an earlier marriage and can't find a death certificate/ remarriage for his first wife. Same line eldest Aunt we know she was illegitimate are the family rumours of father right.

Maternal line, who was GF's niece's father? She went to her grave always wondering.
Was the family Irish? Irish surname but can't trace anyone coming over.
Also maternal GGM line who was the family member who emigrated and said they would leave their wealth to whoever was given family name. My maternal GF has this name, very unusual and can't trace anyone living with this surname.

My dad has done a lot of our family tree but we do have some stories that while we have worked out possibilities, it would be so nice to know for sure.

We have one great-something-aunt called Elsie who just vanishes from the family. Then one called Allison who appears almost out of nowhere, now where they're from Elsie could be a nickname for Allison, but the years of birth are a couple of years apart. But each of them should show elsewhere if they're different people and we're just not sure.

One distant grandfather I think had a second family in Canada and I would love to know the circumstances over that.

And another distant great-aunt apparently vanished around the same time as I think it was the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. I'd like to know if that's actually why or if there was another story.

DH also doesn't know who his maternal grandfather is. His granny never told anyone, but he's vowed to never do a DNA test to try to find out because he wants to respect his granny's wishes. I 100% understand that but the nosey parker in me would really want to know too.

I want to know where my kitchen chair went? how do you loose a kitchen chair?

I did a DNA ancestry test and unexpectedly found I had tiny percentages of DNA associated with Spanish and Coptic Egyptian areas. I thought at first it just proved how unreliable the process is - I was expecting DNA from a range of the duller English counties, enlivened with a bit of Scottish borders. I told my mother as a joke and she snapped 'Oh that's THAT WOMAN'. She wouldn't say much else but she indicated that in maybe 1850 someone in her family married - perfectly legally - a Spanish woman. This was a scandal so horrifying I'd never been told about it and it was buried deep in unspoken family lore. I'd love to know who she was and more about her, and how she felt finding herself married into a bunch of racist overintellectual Unitarians with appalling teeth.

My grandmother on my mother's side fell pregnant out of wedlock and gave the baby girl up for adoption

I'd love to know who the babies father was,was she in love with him or did something else happen,where the 'baby' is now and the family members I don't know

My grandmother was an evil cow but I wouldn't have wished having to give up her baby on anyone

You might be able to find her real father through DNA, if you get loads of matches (on something like ancestry) you can sort the ones you can trace to known family and there may be some fairly close matches that don't fit, that could be her real dad's family.

My Grandfather's records all seem to be missing, I know where he was born (at least I think I do) but no birth record no marriage for his parents, no siblings, a real road block, and no helpful DNA matches so far.

Funnily enough both of my DHs grandfathers did this.

well one traveled as far as Canada; the other only Fife

My great grandmother was married before she met my great grandfather and had a son with her first husband. They never divorced as far as I can tell, so her marriage to my great grandfather was bigamous and my grandma and her siblings were technically illegitimate. Her first son wasn’t brought up with her second family and I can’t find any records for him apart from his birth. He doesn’t seem to have stayed with his father either so I can only assume that he was unofficially adopted. Would love to know what happened to him

@TickingAlongNicely were they Catholic? My maternal grandparents married each other twice, first time in a register office then the second time in a church because the priest said their daughter was illegitimate and refused to baptise her.

This isn't a mystery on the scale of others but I would love to know what happened to my Mum's engagement ring. She remarried in 1986 and I don't remember ever seeing her without her engagement ring on after her wedding - she was like me and never ever took her rings off. She finally stopped wearing it about three years ago when her dementia got really bad and she lost loads of weight. I put it away for safekeeping when I realised she wasn't wearing it one day and found it in the bin because she thought it had come out of a cracker. After she died I got the jeweller to resize it and re- set the stone so that I could wear it. I got a proper valuation done at the same time so that I could insure it. And when I read through the valuation report, it said the year of manufacture was 2002. I've checked the hallmark and spoken to the valuer, and it's definitely correct. It looks like my mum's ring and the current valuation would tie in with the original purchase price, adjusted for inflation over the years. But how can the hallmark show that it was made 16 years after she first got it?

My gg grandfather was born in rural West Cork a decade or so before the potato famine hit. His birthplace was one of the worst hit places in the country, and was completely depopulated by the end of it. It’s just moorland now. Somehow he ended up in Yorkshire. I have found no trace of any relatives coming with him, and been unable to find any records of family members remaining in Ireland. I’d love to know how he migrated - presumably as a teenager on his own. Had his family all died? Did they help him leave and then succumb? Did they just move to somewhere else? He must have gone through so much, but what a survivor. He must have had some stories to tell.

And then there’s Mary Jane, born in Nova Scotia while her father was on a military posting, early nineteenth century. Her mother died shortly after she was born, so her father took her back to the UK and handed her over to an aunt to raise. Mary Jane was deaf, but gained employment in service. Then suddenly the records show her unmarried, giving birth in a workhouse. Baby’s father unknown. A few years later she’s back with her aunt (with the baby). As an old lady, she is recorded as living on ‘independent means’ in her own house.

Who was the baby’s father? A relative did some detective work through Ancestry DNA results and discovered he was a soldier, based at a military base close to the workhouse she had the baby in. I’d like to know what happened; were they in a relationship? Did he know about the baby? Did her aunt cast her out because she was pregnant? How did they reconcile? And where did the independent means come from? They all lived hand to mouth; there were no wealthy relatives to leave it to her. Did the soldier come good?

The asylum ? I struggled to find my GG Grandfather and found him in the County Asylum, the census records at times show his surname and initial but others have his full name.

My grandad (working class, from Lancashire) had a very unusual surname, which originated from Dorset.

It seems some of the family left Dorset for Lancashire to work.

Always wondered why/ if I am actually a Duchess's illegitimate great great granddaughter!

I would like to know about my grand dads family - all he would ever say is that he was a really naughty boy and was sent away. From what we can tell, he was kicked out of the family home at age 15 or so.

Mine's quite depression, so sorry about that. My older brother (under 18) ended his life. No reason given, and everyone said he was a really happy kid. The argument came after his refusal to visit a particular family member.
Other sibling also refused, and due to various reasons they left and moved abroad as soon as they turned 18.

The family member SA me throughout my childhood, although I never spoke up. I reconnected with my other sibling eventually, who admitted to me that he had also SA her.
We will never know the truth, but I do wonder if that was the reason for my brother ending his life so young.

Also, family on my Dad's side abruptly stopped all contact with him and me when I was around 10. I'd love to know the reason for that, too. Not just one or two, but both his parents, his brother and sister and their 5 children between them. One of them (my cousin) went to the same school as me and purposely ignored me when I tried to talk to him, despite him being in year 10 and me just starting year 7.

My grandfather was adopted. We know who his biological mother was as it was all done within the family and eventually came out, but the father was apparently long gone when she realised she was pregnant. Would love to know more about him but have absolutely nothing to go on.

I'd like to know how my ancestors survived the famine.

I was adopted and have 9 half siblings in different families but all from the same town, they don't know about me or about their connection to each other. I could be there in less than 3 hours and blow their worlds apart. But I haven't done it and don't intend to. I just can't understand why people care so much about these things. I don't really give them much head space and most other adopted people i know feel the same. Yet people with secure families get obsessively interested in great great grand uncles. It's bizarre. I don't mean disrespect OP but it is so wierd for me. I think when you live in a world with no blood ties, you just don't see the value of it. But when you believe blood is part of who you are then any gaps in the story cause frustration, that's my theory.

I would love to know where my grandad came from. He showed up in Florida in the mid 30s and married my scandalously divorced grandmother. He was a “confirmed bachelor” by then. My mother thought he married my grandmother because he felt sorry for her. He was a passionate socialist living in the Deep South of the U.S.

Do an Ancestry DNA test