created by tshirtguy2000 on 24/02/2025 at 14:37 UTC*
107 upvotes, 243 top-level comments (showing 25)
Where is the baby given up for adoption by Aunt Flo?
Who is mom's real biological father?
Does dad have other kids out there?
Where did great Uncle Ted disappear to?
Comment by AutoModerator at 24/02/2025 at 14:37 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X or older (born 1980 or before). See this post[1], the rules, and the sidebar for details. Thank you for your submission, tshirtguy2000.
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Comment by SumTenor at 24/02/2025 at 14:41 UTC
114 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I'm the adopted one in my family, so I was the one with questions. But when I hit age 30, I met most of my biological family and most questions were answered. I didn't like all the answers, but hey... I was adopted for a reason.
Comment by BaRiMaLi at 24/02/2025 at 14:46 UTC
99 upvotes, 5 direct replies
My late grandmother was in the resistance in the Netherlands in WWII but never talked about it so we'll never know what she did exactly. I was told a long time ago by older family members (also passed away) that she was even recommended for a decoration after the war, but she politely declined. And they didn't know what she did either, or wouldn't tell at the time.
Comment by CarrieNoir at 24/02/2025 at 15:29 UTC*
84 upvotes, 2 direct replies
My Aunt Lola was a Playboy Bunny at the first New Orleans club. When I was 11 or 12 years old (circa 1976), I was taken to meet her for the first time, as my parents lived on the opposite side of the country as their siblings. She taught me to eat oysters one night at Galatoire's. While the three of them went out on another evening, I stayed back in her French Quarter apartment and looked through her scrapbooks and wondered what an "orgy" was as there were wedding-like, engraved and embossed invitations to some. There were also tons of pictures of her and famous people: Bob Hope, Omar Sharif, Dean Martin...
40+ years later I was able to travel back East again to see her again and she told me tons of stories about her relationship with Jim Garrison and how much she hated Bob Hope "for what he had done to her." But she was still a discreet old broad who kept her cards close and wouldn't divulge much more.
A year or so before she died -- when my husband got seriously into Ancestry and we did the ubiquitous DNA samples -- a guy contacted me via that website as we had a cousin-like link. He had been adopted out of a New Orleans orphanage and what little evidence he could find indicated his mother was someone named Lila or something and the year of his birth coincided with her ending her employment at the Club. Sadly, all her scrapbooks were destroyed in Katrina. Up to her deathbed, Lola denied ever having children. I presented what evidence I had but she was adamant about staying tight-lipped and didn't want to know who the guy was or that he was to have her information.
She passed four or five years ago and I will never know if she had Bob Hope's love/rape child.
Edited for grammar.
Comment by avamomrr at 24/02/2025 at 14:47 UTC
44 upvotes, 3 direct replies
My grandfather had a sibling who was institutionalized their whole life. We have no idea what was wrong with them.
Comment by CassandraApollo at 24/02/2025 at 14:47 UTC
41 upvotes, 7 direct replies
Anything about our German ancestry was not talked about. I think after the world found out what happened in Germany in WWII, many people suddenly buried their German ancestry.
Comment by Grave_Girl at 24/02/2025 at 15:02 UTC
39 upvotes, 2 direct replies
DNA tests showed my brother is my half brother. Not a huge deal, because it doesn't seem our (we thought) parents were ever exclusive with each other. We mutually decided to not tell our mother what we discovered because of the high chance of there being some trauma involved. She is *not* the sort of woman to lie to make herself look better--for real, I was no more than 8 or 9 when she told me I was the result of a drunken attempt to get her ex back--so either she doesn't know or there's a very good reason she's chosen to lie about this one thing for 50+ years.
No regrets about the decision, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was curious as all get out.
Comment by wickedlees at 24/02/2025 at 15:04 UTC
36 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Where my Iranian grandpa are buried, they were beaten and murdered by revolutionaries 😕
Comment by jagger129 at 24/02/2025 at 14:42 UTC
33 upvotes, 3 direct replies
In the late 1800’s, my Italian immigrant 2x grandfather and his son disappeared in New York City. The family never had closure because they never knew what happened to them.
I suspect funny business with the mob :/
Comment by genek1953 at 24/02/2025 at 15:51 UTC
30 upvotes, 3 direct replies
My father served in WWII. He never talked about what he saw or did, but when I was approaching draft age during the Vietnam era, he sat me down and talked to me about possible colleges in Canada that I might consider transferring to.
Comment by cannycandelabra at 24/02/2025 at 15:59 UTC
32 upvotes, 3 direct replies
My grandfather never learned to drive. He was raised in a wealthy family and had a chauffeur and valet. He came to America and for a while my grandmother drove him. When he was finally making enough money, he hired a driver and conducted all his business being taken from place to place. When he became ill and learned it was cancer, the chauffeur took him many places as he wrapped up his affairs.
Finally, he died. It was a total shock to the family that he had cashed in all his assets the last few weeks of his life. Life insurance - cashed in. Took out a sizable mortgage on what had been a paid for house. Emptied his bank accounts. Left his wife in her 70’s with nothing in the bank, no insurance, and a mortgaged house. No one ever knew what he did with the money. The driver was shocked; the mistress was enraged; his wife was baffled.
Comment by gadget850 at 24/02/2025 at 14:49 UTC
27 upvotes, 2 direct replies
My 2nd great-grandfather owned slaves and we may have cousins not in the family tree.
Comment by PerilsofPenelope at 24/02/2025 at 14:49 UTC
26 upvotes, 2 direct replies
My grandfather was born in 1887. He was adopted, and brought to the place he grew up, then he moved as an adult to South Carolina. We know nothing about where he's from, or how he became to be adopted. There are no records, no stories, nothing in the family Bible. I've resorted to DNA kits for clues, and nothing. Every match so far has been on my grandmother's side.
Comment by No_Cricket808 at 24/02/2025 at 14:50 UTC
26 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Where did Aunt Blanche REALLY go after her breakdown. She didn't have a sister in Chicago. She didn't have a sister at all.
Comment by SadLocal8314 at 24/02/2025 at 15:24 UTC
24 upvotes, 0 direct replies
When my (adopted,) grandmother died, my uncle found some papers that probably should have been returned to the court in Grandmother's possession. The papers gave the names of my mother's bio parents and the reason for the surrender. This was before the internet or DNA tests. Everyone tried, but we couldn't find them with the tools available in the 1970s and 1980s. Flashforward, in 2015, my SIL is helping Mom sort papers for shredding and she came on the adoption papers. J said to Mom: "Can I make a search?" Mom told her to go ahead, but no one had found anything and anyway, it's 75 years-they are probably dead." Six weeks later, Mom had another sister, another brother, another SIL, another BIL, another niece, another nephew, and some more great-niblings as well. We did the DNA to confirm, although Mom and her bio sibs look enough alike to be scary.
Comment by Prestigious_Rain_842 at 24/02/2025 at 14:55 UTC
21 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Was Cousin Patrick really screwed up for life because he was part of the MK Ultra program?
Comment by Frequent_Skill5723 at 24/02/2025 at 15:48 UTC
20 upvotes, 1 direct replies
We never figured out which concentration camp my paternal grandmother died in. Her husband, my paternal grandfather, survived two years in Buchenwald. But we never found gramma.
Comment by TheRealEkimsnomlas at 24/02/2025 at 14:56 UTC*
18 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Was my great grandfather's real father a full native American? The story goes that my great-grandad was taken away as a kid to live with his mom who married a white man and who adopted him, and there are stories of him being taken on trips to see his dad by canoe down a major river which is in the vicinity. No one knows for sure, there are only stories.
Comment by lilbearpie at 24/02/2025 at 16:07 UTC
17 upvotes, 0 direct replies
My estranged dad went missing in 1980 during a trip to Florida from Madison WI, Uhaul trailer he was towing was found on the west side of Chicago, never found his body or car. He was a drug dealer so that is all I know, missing person since 1979.
Comment by missdawn1970 at 24/02/2025 at 15:03 UTC
14 upvotes, 3 direct replies
My mother suspected that her oldest sister (18y older) was actually her mother. Aunt C. never married and had no children of her own, and Grandmother was not supposed to be able to have any more children. This was in 1939 (my mother was born in Jan 1940), when it was scandalous for a single woman to be pregnant. My mother's other siblings said that they remembered their mother being pregnant with her, and didn't remember Aunt C. ever going away for an extended period of time, so it seems unlikely that she was my mother's mother.
Comment by Queenofhackenwack at 24/02/2025 at 15:09 UTC
15 upvotes, 0 direct replies
when the grave was opened, to bury my grandmother, ( mom's mother)the diggers found the casket of a baby in the plot. there are no records of an infant being buried there and nobody in the family knew of it or who's kid it is..... that was over 50 yrs ago and still don't know.....
also, about 35 yrs ago i started doing family history.... my great-grandmother ( mom's dad's mother) was married in 1886 and was childless until 1894 when my grandfather was born. they were a well to do boston political family.....lots of history with Harvard, and local hospitals.
i found out that my grandfathers birth was never recorded until 1934 and stated he was born at home... found a long lost cousin , on his side, that turned out to be family historian and he shared that my grandfather was thought to be adopted... but he looked just like my great-grandfather..... could never prove it but we think that he was the product of my great grandfather and one of the irish servants and my great grandmother "claimed " him...
we will never know......
Comment by Ok_Acanthisitta_2544 at 24/02/2025 at 15:40 UTC
15 upvotes, 0 direct replies
My great-great grandfather sold his farm land in southern Alberta, then loaded up the entire family belongings, wife and 10 kids on one train car, and the stock on a second train car, to move north toward better soil, pastures, and grain growing opportunities during the dirty 30s. My grandfather's oldest brother (the oldest child, at 17 years) hopped off the train as it was pulling out of the station, because he didn't want to move and leave his girlfriend behind. He was never heard from again.
Comment by hoosiergirl1962 at 24/02/2025 at 14:59 UTC
12 upvotes, 1 direct replies
My great-grandmother had a baby out of wedlock (late 1880s) before she married my great-grandfather and she took it to her grave who the father was. It doesn't matter now, but the genealogist in me would love to have that piece of the puzzle in place.
And people used to be so hard on children like that, as if it was their fault for being illegitimate. My grandmother told my mom that this older half-sister of hers "wasn't treated very well in the family" and she ended up being raised by my great-great grandmother instead.
Comment by chrispybobispy at 24/02/2025 at 15:08 UTC*
12 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Grandpa died in the 60s after a drunk driving accident. Which wasn't the worst thing given he was an abusive asshole.
Flash forward 50 years or so when grandma's mind really starts slipping and she starts connecting dots that may or may not be real.... grandpa was maybe a serial killer.
Comment by AnotherPint at 24/02/2025 at 15:19 UTC
12 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Was my younger brother the result of an act of infidelity by my mother?
He didn’t look like anyone else in the family (blond and lanky and vaguely Nordic, while everyone else was dark, thickly built and Anglo-Germanic), my father shunned him, and Mom made endless defensive excuses for his erratic behavior, boy and man.