I never met any of my fathers family. I was told his mum died when he was a young child, and his dad also had died years earlier, and accepted that. My dad was brought up from infancy to age 11 by his maternal grandparents as his mum had severe MH issues. At 11 his dad remarried, and he moved to live with him his new wife and their children.
Many years later when my dad died, I found out that he had (during my lifetime) been living under a different name to his birth name. He'd taken my mum's surname and used his middle name as a first name. So if he was John Edward Smith and my mum was Jane Brown, he called himself Eddie Brown. My parents were never married (I didn't know this while they were alive) and my dad was married to someone else.
I did some research after my dad died, and found his real name, and details of his parents and his wife (I recently found out she only died 2 years ago). His dad died when I was a teenager, and his mum died when my dad was in his 30s, not a child. I couldn't find any details of divorce or subsequent marriage for his dad.
I just have so many unanswered questions about it all. Particularly my grandmother, was she in an institution for 30 years? Did my dad even know or did they just tell him she died?
There's no one I can ask about this, my dad had a close friend who died before him but no others. None of my mums family who are still living knew anything about my dad's life before he met my mum. I don't know to what extent I can research via Ancestry or similar - or whether I'd just be wasting my time?
I don't know why I want to know. Part of me thinks maybe some stuff I'm not meant to know, and if i do delve into it all, what will I do with that information? But I keep coming back to it.