To ignore what I’ve found out.

[CD41]

Posting here for traffic. Decided to research my family tree. I’ve tried before and didn’t have enough time so thought lockdown might be perfect.

I already have a lot of info on my maternal grandmothers side but nothing on my maternal grandfathers side. I was incredibly close to my grandad. He only died a couple months ago but he didn’t talk about his family much.

So tonight I was doing some basic searching on ancestry. I learnt that my grandads mum and dad got married 8 months before he as born. Maybe it’s because she was pregnant? Who knows.

Doesn’t sound too bad but my grandad has a brother 5 years older than him who I always assumed to have the same father as they share the same name. I then discovered that my grandads dad appeared to be married until maybe 18 months before he was born. I never knew he had a first wife. It also means that he would have been married to first wife when my great uncle (still alive and in his 80’s) was born so likely not his dad after all unless it was an affair at first. It appears my grandads dads first wife died young. It didn’t seem likely they had children.

I tried finding my great uncles birth registration. It appears that his name was changed from his mother’s maiden name to my grandads surname. But obviously without seeing the birth certificate no idea who great uncles father is.

Bearing in mind my grandads dad died when he was very young and he cannot really remember him. It would also make sense as my grandad had the same name as his dad. Surely a first born son would take the name? Not the second? I had never even thought of that way before.

Now aibu to not say anything? I assume if my grandad did know he didn’t tell anyone or he may have just told my granny and they kept it quiet. Or maybe he didn’t know..

I guess nothing has changed for my grandad. His mum and dad were his parents regardless but it’s his brother who maybe lived a lie and they were in fact half brothers (I don’t think that makes any difference, my children have different fathers but consider them just brother and sister not half of anything).

They also had another older brother who their mum had really young.

Shall I just keep quiet? I worry if I tell my mum she’ll just go telling everyone and it’s probably not the right thing to do right now.

Aibu to keep it to myself?

I wouldn't be surprised if they were full brothers. If they didn't know as children they must have known as adults. But best to keep it to yourself though.

I had a similar story with my own father.

I'm 33 he would be 76 but he sadly died 10 years ago

My dad was born in 1944, I was bone in 1986

My mum is 13 years younger than my dad, they met when she was early twenties, him mid 30's

It's obvious as an adult it's likely he had relationships before my mother but not brought up/ water under the bridge.

I was 13 when I overheard a conversation between my mum and dad about his first wife and his son.

I asked my mum and she said she didn't really know the details just that he had been married and had a son. That is totally her personality btw she wouldn't be bothered by his history.

He was just 20 when his son was born.

I never mentioned it to my dad EVER
Spoke about it with my mum once or twice she just said he was olde when she met him and he had a past.

I was surprised he would have a son out there and no contact with him but I didn't ask questions.

So...

A few years after he died I'm back living at home (divorced) and a letter arrives in dad's name.

It's from a woman who wants to know how he is and if he would like to know about how 'sons name' is.
My mum didn't really catch on to who wrote it and showed it to me saying she thought it was from his sisters friend.

I put two and two together and told her what she thought and she said 'oh' and put it in the bin.

So...

I take it out take a photo and put it back in the bin

A couple of weeks later I ring the number. The letter had upset my mum and I didn't want her sending more letters and thought she should know he had died not just ignored her letter.

Our conversation was so interesting I found out what had happened and that my dad had married young because girlfriend was pregnant. They coped ok but weren't happy. My dad left (mutual decision) his son was quite young and his ex met someone new and fell pregnant. Ex and new partner got married and NEW PARTNER ADOPTED MY DADS SON

The boy was raised not knowing but the ex told me on the phone his aunt dropped hints at a party so he might now on some level.

Her new husband raised both kids and sadly died about two years before she wrote the letter. She didn't know whether to tell her son or not about his bio dad.

We had a really good chat and I felt like I got answers and she got closure. My dad passing she thought there was no point to raise the issue as he could never meet my dad.

I told my mum about a year later as we saw my dads sister (who lives 300 miles away) and I told her about it all.

Long post but it's interesting for me.

I think this stuff probably happened a lot when there was still stigma about kids from divorce or born out of wedlock

It's a shame my dad never got to know his son but I think he thought it was in his sons best interests

All had happy lives.
It's the secrets that keep you up at night

We've discovered that my Mum and her older sister are probably not of the same Father as all their younger siblings.

We don't care. My Mum had problems with her "Dad" so she's quite pleased. We think her real Dad was an Italian man.

This sort of thing fascinated me too. There are secrets in my family and DH's that we know about but we're not supposed to know. Until those people die along with anyone close to them then I won't say anything. Back then secrets were shameful, whereas it isn't really seen as shameful any more (for example, having a child out of wedlock, young, etc) it brought terrible shame on a family back then, and even to a certain extent, only as recent as in the 80s. And still now in certain cultures.

So yes, I'd keep quiet for now.
But I'd also want to know more. As long as you are responsible with the information you find then I don't see any harm in digging deeper.

We found out my OH family had some kind of scandal going back to beginning of 20th century when an australian appeared at my aunts with news that he was a distant relative. My FIL went nuts and told my aunt to show him the door.

Then another time another distant relative sent us a family tree he was trying to update again FIL went mad and told us in no uncertain terms to ignore it and tell the relative to back off.

Let it be for best, eh?, the past is iin the past!.

Did find out i was descecned from a line of agricutral labours around back to 1700 or that time.

Girl married boy from next village had around 10 to 12 children most of who would invarably die young, two might make it to adulthood then same again all married very locally, villages max three miles away!

Then came the railways, moved around a lot then, health seemed to get better thats to say the children lived longer.

Viseted that area and the orignal village, there're still there and most all have headstones which surprised me a bit as i didnt think they could afford things like that!

Being unmarried parents has really only become socially acceptable within the last 30 years. Prior to that you have lots of couples who said they were married when they either weren't at all, or got married secretly after having 1 or more children and having told people they were already married.

I'm actually glad people don't have to live a lie in that way any more.

We were sorting some papers from my grandparents' house a few years ago and discovered that my grandmother was born "outside wedlock". The marriage certificate for my great grandparents had had the year rubbed out to prevent anyone from seeing it. My husband ordered a copy of the original certificate and found that they had married when my grandmother was a baby. There was nobody alive who would have been hurt by the knowledge but if there had been we would have kept the info to ourselves.

We also discovered that another of my great grandfathers was illegitimate - in the relevant census his occupation was listed as "bastard". It made sense of something that my grandfather once mentioned about his surname being wrong but he had never known why.

All this was after my grandparents' generation had died and although it was of interest to us and to my mum there was no one around to be upset about it.

I have a rule when I’m doing family tree stuff - I never share any surprises about a person’s parents or siblings unless they ask and the person whose secret it is is dead.

Things were very, very different not so long ago and people keep their secrets for their reasons. They had no idea that certificates and stories would become interesting to everyone years down the line.

Re the family though - a lot of families followed a tradition where it was the 3rd son who was named after the father. The first and second sons would be called after the grandfathers.

Some years ago I found out that my paternal grandmother was illegitimate. It didn't matter at all to me, or my sister when I told her. We agreed that we wouldn't mention it to our paternal Aunts and Uncles ( grandparents being long dead) as it wasn't our secret to divulge.

A couple of years later, one of the uncles asked if we knew his mother's surname. After a bit of dithering on our part, uncle said he had found out our grandmother was born out of wedlock. Turns out my great grandmother has a very colourful life, including, but not limited to, having my grandmother "out of wedlock" , as they used to say.

In short I wouldn't mention it. It's not your secret to tell. Keep schtum would be my advise. There is little, if any, discrimination against children born in these circumstances, but it might be hurtful for those of a different generation.

I'm 70, so when I speak of other generations, I mean those in their 90s

OP - similar situation here as DH recently found out that his grandfather wasn’t actually his grandfather. It is probably a bit of an open secret and fairly obvious to close family if they stopped and thought about it, but a couple have no idea. It was a war time situation, so there’s obviously more to it it, but that’s a huge chunk of DH’s genetic and cultural background that he knows nothing about, and I know it bothers him sometimes. His grandfather may even still be alive, his grandmother is, and he may have other family, but we’ve hit a bit of a wall with it all.

It is fascinating, I’ve got slightly obsessed with genealogy. There are so many skeletons in closets from that era, and no doubt some of them are best left... Maybe not always though, I’ve met a relative through a century old secret and it’s been really quite healing. You’d need to think very carefully about it.

My dad's oldest sibling was adopted at birth, because my grandparents weren't married. She eventually made contact with dad and the family, but has since died.

My ex's mum, OTOH, always had a twinkle in her eye when she talked about how she was 'premature', as she arrived 6 months after the wedding. She knew that her parents had married hastily due to the pregnancy, and thought it was amusing.

It's not really your business to go stirring up the past. You will probably cause a lot of embarrassment and hurt if you do. Let sleeping dogs lie (and keep what you found out to yourself).

I have researched my mum’s side of the family with her and we found out some rather startling things which we decided to keep to ourselves and they directly concern her mother who is no longer living. My mum decided to not say anything and wanted to keep it between us. I’ve never even mentioned it to my husband. I’d say keep it to yourself. Who would you be benefitting by dropping this bombshell? Also, a lot of time
Has passed and people actually may not be interested.

Despite what you see on “who do you think you are” where people cry over great great great uncles and their exploits, you might find the moment has passed and no one is really that interested 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think that there is no point in telling your great uncle that he may have had a differant father as at his age, why cause him any worries? The virus concern is probably hard enough on him and he is elderly.

I do genealogy too. A recent dna match has popped up as a first cousin, whom nobody in the family knows of. The dna cousin was surprised too, had no idea, and both of their parents are now deceased. Both came from the same area all the family came from. More cousins have just ordered dna tests to try to help figure it out.

Keep it to yourself, you are just presuming some of this, as you said they may have had an affair and even got married after his first wife died. Don't go upsetting your uncle, especially with stuff your not sure of.
Find out for your own interest and keep it to yourself. X

So tonight I was doing some basic searching on ancestry. I learnt that my grandads mum and dad got married 8 months before he as born. Maybe it’s because she was pregnant? Who knows.

This isn't possible for you to know from Ancestry as births and marriages are given in quarters of the year so eg it may say Jan when in fact it was March and it may say Oct when it was actually December . You need to get the actual records to know the exact dates.

After my dad died, I came across my parents wedding certificate, and they'd married 2 years later than they'd always hinted - about ten weeks before I was born, and eighteen months after my brothers birth. My sister (from my Mothers' first marriage) had always known, but never said anything.
The amusing thing was that my mothers weddings had both been on the same date (different years) - when I was nearly eleven, my mum had been very keen on wanting to celebrate her silver wedding anniversary to the first husband,
On reflection, it was about the same year her first husband remarried; my mother was a rather strange woman

Did your granddad and his 5 yr older brother know the child that their mum had at a young age? Are you on ancestry?

Family history can be fascinating. Mine certainly was and I am sure is to this day. However, keep what you find to yourself.

Those of a previous generation may still feel shame and guilt of having a what we might now call a "colourful" past disclosed.

They may well be aware of it, but would be mortified if they thought anyone else knew.

Sometimes, when people get older they want to share. My grandad, father and mother all did. So, as ladycarlotta stated, I had context and could ask questions, which documents could never have provided.

My Mum doesn't believe her Dad was actually her Dad. She looks very different from the rest of her siblings and believes herself to be of mixed race. Her looks do back this up in some respects. I'd love to know more but she has only ever mentioned it once or twice so I don't feel it's my place to ask questions.

What ILuvQuarintinis said about the 1/4ly summary register, you need to check the actual birth certificate record yourself as sounds like you've seen other peoples research via their trees on Ancestry and they may not be accurate.

CD41 I totally 'get' that Family History/genealogy is fascinating for you (it is for me too) and it's very exciting to discover what you think may turn out to be new knowledge. However, a word of caution, because what you actually have at the moment is just whole lot of supposition. It 'appears' does not mean it is so.

The point made up thread about weddings being recorded quarterly is a good one and honeymoon babies were common years ago. As for the first marriage and your great uncle's birth - you still don't know anything, but you have the opportunity to find out if you're prepared to shell out for the certificates.

I discovered that my great grandfather was born out of wedlock following an affair with the next door neighbor he was raised by my great grandmothers DH as his own, they married soon after he was born and took his name, and went on to have 5 other DC. His real fathers name could have been sergeant but my DF told me he thought the neighour was a sergeant rather than it being his name. I got this through talking to my late DF rather than ancestry so assume it was spoken about for it to have reached him.

I found a distant relative in the 1860s who had 3 children unmarried. The oldest was called Fred Smith Hername.
She later marries a Fred Smith after his mother dies and the children all become Smith.
Families were always complicated.