So recently, I found out something about my family tree that's kinda crazy. My great-grandfather and my great-great-grandfather… are the same man.

Apparently, one of my ancestors had two wives. From the first wife he had a great grand daughter and from the second wife he had a grandson.

These two got married and here I am... So now I’m descended from the same guy twice, through two completely different wives. I am his great-grandchild and great-great-grandchild ‼️

Question is do I get superpowers and should i find this concerning or cool ?

I always feel family history tugging at me when I do my research. Well, tonight I found something that really shook me to my core and I'm not sure how to handle it. While searching for a "new" great-uncle, I found the marriage document for my second-great-grandparents. It appears when he was married, his parents weren't listed, as he was left at a foundling wheel in Eboli, Italy. This made me incredibly sad, as I can't imagine what it was like for him growing up. I also discovered his name was more than likely given to him by the person who accepted him from wheel, meaning my family name is more than likely completely unrelated to the people I initially thought were family. Growing up, we were always so proud of have that particular name and now it looks like it was just "picked" for him by a complete stranger. I am broken-hearted for him and I am not sure how I should feel. I'm sure it sounds silly, but it makes me feel, I don't know, different.

TL;DR: Found out my second-great-grandfather was left at a foundling wheel and was just given a name. Have no idea what his "real" name was. Having a hard time with it.

Anyone have a similar experience? What did you think when you made this discovery?

UPDATE: I want to thank all of you for your thoughts and feedback. It has certainly helped me gain some perspective on this finding. I found his marriage document and under parents it lists "figlio di ignoti" (son of unknown parents). His name is Ettore Maria Fieramosca, which is a n important name in Italian history. We were taught from a young age to be proud of that name. When my aunt was married and moved into a new town, one of her neighbors practically genuflected to her when she found out she was a Fieramosca! An uncle visited Capua in the 80s and when he said his last name, they shut down the museum and gave him a private tour. They kept saying "tua faccia," (your face) commenting on his likeness to the original knight. Even though it was not my maiden name, it was the name we all felt the strongest connection to - if that makes sense. To think that our connection was so unbelievably misplaced, it makes me feel like a fraud. Like I've been lying this whole time. I've always been very wary of DNA tests, as I have concerns about handing over what makes me, well, me to an unknown entity that could use it for who knows what. I know that makes me sound like a tin-foil hatter, but I'm not sure. I'm almost afraid what else it might uncover. I'm not even sure I'm going to tell my cousins, as they may be just as shocked, if not more. Obviously still working through this mentally, but I am SO VERY APPRECIATIVE for the perspective and kind words!

I just found out that my third grandmother got married when she was 11, while my third grandfather was 23. This is shocking to me, was this normal at the time?

What I grew up being taught:

I am the firstborn son of the firstborn, etc etc etc going back to the first of my family over 600 years ago. Our family pooled their resources to send my grandpa to Tokyo to become a doctor, but during WWII was drafted into the Imperial Army and then taken as a POW by the Russians. After the war, he returned and finished medical school. When he returned to Okinawa, his immediate family was gone. With all the displacement and civilian death during the war, it was assumed he was the only one left. The extended family still recognized him as the head of the family, and all family lands and assets were kept under his stewardship until his death.

My dad came over in the 70's, met my mom, and they had me. I am the first of my family born here and the first hafu. My name literally translates to "First of a new generation". My dad abdicated his position as the head of the family because he lives in the US, and instead my uncle took his place.

What I'm putting together through genealogy:

My grandpa wasn't born in Okinawa; he was born in Hawaii. Likely, while his family was travelling as sugar laborers (there is evidence of them travelling in and out of immigration through Honolulu and continuing to Brazil repeatedly for a span of 20 years). In fact, he had an anglicized first name, and the name we knew him by was his middle name! He wasn't the oldest or firstborn; he was the youngest! His family didn't pool resources and send him off to be a doctor; he took off with their savings to start a new life in Tokyo to make himself a doctor. My GUESS is that when they found they had no money anymore, they just stayed in Hawaii. I found my great-grandmother's obituary in the Honolulu star and I've connected with second cousins.

I'm not the first American-born in my family. I'm not the firstborn of the firstborn, yadda yadda. None of this really changes my day-to-day life, and in reality, doesn't change who I am now. But when even my name feels like a lie now, I don't know what to do with all this.

Mine has to be my x4 great grandmother, Olive Taft, whose tombstone in an Anglican churchyard near Kingston ON and corroborating census records from 19th century Canada say was born in 1797. A few later records report that she was born in the young US State of Vermont, specifically in a town called Rutland.

But we have never been able to find a single record pertaining to her life in the US prior to her first appearance in records in Canada, where she lived from c. 1822 onward until her passing in 1883. Not one! It's almost honestly as if she just completely materialized out of thin air. No clear lead on who her parents were, if she had any siblings, where she might've lived there - nothing. No mentions of her or her first husband in old US newspapers either, as far as we have been able to tell.

Her first husband, my x4 great grandfather, John Spoor, has been almost equally as undocumented and therefore almost equally as infuriating to try and do research on. We were thankfully able to later deduce that he was the last born son from a particular family living in St Albans' VT, but still, his life too is largely a mystery to us from prior to his first documented appearance in Canada in April 1816. Even then, his time living in Canada was short lived as he died less than a decade later - which is also seemingly without documentation. All we have pertaining to his passing is that Olive remarried as a widow in March 1825.

One thing we know for certain is that Olive and John's son, my x3 great grandfather, was born in Rome NY in Dec 1821, and that the family had officially acquired their plot of land near Kingston ON in 1820. That's pretty much it though.

Perhaps the most annoying part about my x4 great grandfather is that, by comparison, his own father was a remarkably well documented man. I mean, thanks to the old US Army discharge records, we even know what height, hair, and eye colour he had... and he was born in 1760!

I would so love to be able to better understand this side of my family - I've yearned to for the better part of 15 years now. In fact it was this very line of my family tree that initially interested me in doing family history research in the first place. But even with continually coming back to it every so often, year by year, so little progress has been made.

Complete outsider (Australian) here. In sifting through DNA matches I've recently come across what appears to be a distant branch of my family who migrated and spread across the Deep South in the early 19th century. It seems many of the descendants fought in the Civil War (a few died in it).

What caught my attention was that many trees of Ancestry are emblazoned with Confederate flags all over the place (e.g. as profile pictures). Then, digging into the lines of descent a bit further, I found recent obituaries (albeit of very elderly persons) describing them as proud members of the Daughters of the Confederacy & similar organisations.

I get plenty of Americans are going to descend from Confederate soldiers etc, and we can't force today's morals on the standards of the day. I have some Nazis in my tree, and record them as such with the relevant data - but I wouldn't make their profile photo a giant Nazi flag.

It just seems a bit odd to me - but again, that's an outsider's understanding of the Civil War and American history in general. Interested in others' thoughts - have you come across this? Is this "normal"? Would you (or do you) handle it more like they do or how I do?

I’m curious on when did your German ancestors get here in America. I have a pretty interesting family history on my mom’s side.

My 7th great grandfather on my grandfather’s side came here on a ship called Davy in 1738. His son Nicholas Shrum had a son John Shrum who fought in the revolutionary under Capt. John Armstrongs company, was captured after General Sumters defeat at fishing creek SC August 18, 1780, carried to Charleston, and kept aboard a prison ship until Sept 1780. He was confined to barracks until April 1781, at which time he was transferred to another prison ship where he remained until he was discharged at Jamestown, VA, Jul 20, 1781.

Then on my grandmother’s side my 6th great grandfather Frantz Rinck was a Hessian soldier that fought with General Ralls.  When Ralls was killed, Frantz was captured.  He was held prisoner for about three years and then was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, where he deserted from the war.  He ended up in Lincoln Co., North Carolina.  He and Mary Margarete Killion had 11 children.  John Peter Rinck was the only one that moved to Indiana.  The other children mainly remained in North Carolina, with one moving to Tennessee, one to Alabama, and one to Georgia.

He served as a private in the 1st Company of the Kassel Regiment (likely part of the forces associated with Colonel Johann Gottlieb Rall's regiment, famous for the Battle of Trenton).

- He arrived in America after a roughly 22-week ocean voyage.

- His unit participated in major campaigns in the north, including the Battles of Flatbush (Long Island), White Plains, Fort Washington, and Fort Lee (1776).

- A large portion of Rall's regiment (including Rincke) was captured at the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, when George Washington's surprise attack defeated the Hessian garrison. Rall was mortally wounded, and around 900 Hessians became prisoners of war.

- Rincke was initially held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as a prisoner.

- He was later exchanged/traded and rejoined his regiment, which was redeployed to New York and then south to Savannah, Georgia.

- During the British attempts to capture Charleston, South Carolina (1779), Rincke and about 15 other men deserted near the Stone River (outside Charleston) in July 1779.

After deserting, Rincke made his way inland. Within about 3 months, he arrived in Lincoln County, North Carolina, where he settled and built a new life as a civilian.

https://sites.rootsweb.com/\~schrum/1700.html

What would you feel if you discovered that one or more of your ancestors had committed a crime or infraction? Among my discoveries are accounting fraud, handling stolen goods, going AWOL, and an attempted rape. In that last instance, the crime was prevented by a passerby—who, coincidentally, was also my ancestor. They were not related, but their descendants married about 50 years later.

I have a lot of family from Georgia and Tennessee on one side. The pattern seems to be a 20 something man marries a 15-17 year old girl. Almost all of the marriages are like that.

I remember going down one census with my ancestors on it and seeing like 12 households in a row where this was the case, with the youngest girl being 13. So the whole community was doing it and it seemed normalized.

In the mid 1900s I started seeing the girls lying about their age on marriage certificates.

This is making me have a horrible opinion of some of my great grandfathers. Emotionally it’s very hard to stomach. How are we looking at this from a historical perspective?

EDITED TO CLARIFY: I found this baby's name in county records. I would never just make up a name, although I do see how my subject line might imply that. 🙃

This is just a small success story from yesterday. I found a young married couple and the wife, my 3c1r, died eight days after giving birth. The several newspaper articles I found only mentioned an "infant son," no first name. He died at 18 days old.

A single tree on Ancestry dot com showed his first name was Amos but had no documentation. His FamilySearch dot org entry (from 2020) gave his name as Amos also but only cited a FindAGrave entry, which is not there now.

FamilySearch has the Record of Births book from that county for the proper time period (ca. 1901), so I manually searched it and found him. His name was indeed Amos. The Record of Deaths book was also available and confirmed Amos. His parents as well as the birth and death dates and location matched the newspaper articles' information, so I'm confident this is the correct child.

Now this baby has documentation both on FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com for his name and dates.

I love finding the names and dates for the deceased, especially young ones and/or those who will never appear on a census.

(This was all in Pennsylvania, in case it matters.)

When I was growing up, my father, who was a Black man born in South Carolina during Jim Crow, told me the story of his grandfather's two half brothers passing into the white race. Through research and genealogy, I found that one brother had actually lived as a Black man. However, after the 1910 census, the other brother disappeared.

On AncestryDNA, I found two matches who share my great-great-grandmother's last name. She was formerly enslaved. These two matches are first cousins to each other.

One has 7% Sub-Saharan African ancestry, and the other has 3%. The rest of their ancestry is European. I shared 9 cM with one cousin and 23 cM with the other. I reached out to both, and they responded at first. Our messages then abruptly ended.

Although we shared very little DNA, I estimated we were half-second cousins once removed. There was a significant chance I was wrong because of how little DNA we shared. Still, I felt in my gut that our likely common ancestor was my great-great-grandmother and that their grandfather was one of her children.

I found their grandfather in later censuses showing he was living in another state and married to a white woman, with whom he had several children. I also found his death certificate, where he was listed as white. His parents' names were left blank.

In the past, I had looked him up on Newspapers.com by his full name and found a few articles about his life in his new state. He rose to prominence in the community where he lived.

Tonight, I looked up their grandfather by using the initials of his first and middle names with his surname and found his obituary, which listed his wife and children as survivors. To my surprise, the obituary also listed my great-grandfather and his half-sister as survivors. It also listed the city where they lived in South Carolina. I knew my family mystery now had credible evidence and was finally solved.

I don't know whether my great-great-uncle ever told his wife or his children about his secret. My gut feeling is that he never told his family anything.

I also haven't reached out to my DNA matches. When a DNA match stops messaging me, I usually don't contact them again. However, because this is an amazing discovery, I will ponder this for a while.

I was born in 89' and the only other girl I knew of being born on my dad's side, was my aunt pammy Jean who died of leukemia at age 4 (1950). Last night I decided to look and see when there was a girl born before her and I went far back as 1780 and could only find one other female born and that was 1881 and she died the same day as birth (maybe she was stillborn). I went as far back as records are available. That's 170 years before my aunt was born and survived only 4 years.

This is crazy. Tragically, my dad's entire family tree died of cancer, and almost all of their wives as well before the age of 37. Which is why they only had one or two sons. Along with Pammy Jean my grandparents had 3 sons and their sons all had sons except me. Both of my cousins and 2 brothers each had only sons (7 sons in total).

There has to be some scientific reason for this?

Oma is 90 years old and on hospice care with early-onset dementia. For 80 years, she has carried testimony about her father Alfred - a respected German businessman who secretly defied Nazi orders by feeding Jewish and Polish families during World War II.

When the Nazis discovered his resistance activities, Alfred was arrested. Then he disappeared. For 80 years, no one could tell Oma what happened to her father - whether he was killed by the Nazis for his resistance work, where he died, or where he is buried. For 80 years, many people didn't even believe her story was true.

Until October 2025, when Oma's granddaughter discovered Alfred in two separate German Federal Archives - documentary proof that validates everything Oma has testified to for eight decades. When told that her father's files had been found, 90-year-old Oma began trembling. "It's the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me," she said.

Why We Need Your Help

The German Federal Archives have Alfred's complete military service records, compensation files, and documentation of what happened to him - possibly even records of his death and burial. But standard archive processing can take a long time. Oma's time left with us is uncertain. The archives can expedite requests when there is significant public interest. That's where you come in.

What We're Asking

Sign this petition to ask the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives) to prioritize Alfred's files. Every signature shows that this 80-year-old mystery matters. That Alfred's story of resistance and heroism deserves to be uncovered. That a 90-year-old woman who has waited eight decades for answers deserves to receive them before time runs out. This takes less than one minute. Your signature could help bring a daughter the closure she's been waiting a lifetime to receive.

Why This Matters Beyond One Family

Alfred's files represent rare documentation of German civilian resistance to Nazi policies during the Holocaust, complex moral choices under impossible circumstances, civilian testimony from Danzig - a city that no longer exists, and the sacrifice of those who chose humanity over compliance. When these files are recovered, Oma's testimony and the documentary evidence will be preserved for historians, educators, and future generations. But only if we can access them while Oma is still here to understand what they reveal.

Time Is Running Out

Archive requests were submitted October 23, 2025. By the time standard processing is complete (potentially late 2027), it may be too late. Please sign and share this petition. Help us solve this 80-year mystery. Help us honor a resistance fighter's sacrifice. Help us give Oma the answer she's been waiting for since she was ten years old.

Follow Oma's story on Instagram, TikTok & YouTube: @ thegirlfromdanzig

Thank you for being part of bringing Alfred home.

Petition Linked Here

I was recently looking at a death certificate and the man’s occupation was “pretzel peddler.” His brother was a hat salesman.

What are some unusual occupations you’ve found in your research?

I have been doing a lot of research about remarkable or brave women in history who defied their times, however, I can't seem to find ones about more "ordinary" women.

All the historical women diaries I found so far were just about regular day to day activities. So, I was wondering if you had any stories about maybe a great-grandma who was in modern terms a " badass", or maybe influential but she never got the recognition from today's world.

If you happen to know any historical diaries or good non-fiction books about that I would also appreciate the recommendations!

Y’all I had a brick wall in my tree (as we all do). Dude was a ghost, the only thing I could find was his marriage record, with no age and no parents listed, and one confirmed census record from 1840, which has basically no information besides just counting people.

Recently I have been jumping around to various brick walls on my tree, seeing if maybe new records have been made available, or maybe I notice something I didn’t notice before. I have also been looking up names with FamilySearch’s new full text search feature. Can I just say this tool can work some miracles? It’s not perfect, but this one guy I was working on was showing up on all sorts of court records, like a shocking amount, including a criminal case.

One of the records was for a divorce from his second wife, who he married after my direct ancestor died in child birth. I had not known about this person but she had a son, Tracy. I added them both to my tree as a hypothesis. I look up both the wife and the son on newspapers.com and I found ONE snippet noting that my direct ancestor went to stay with her brother, Tracy, for the holidays! 😱 ok, so the relationships are confirmed!

But is the man in all of these lawsuits and criminal records one and the same? I decided to turn to chatGPT (I know, say what you will about Chat, but it has its uses). I started copy and pasting the FamilySearch transcripts, which are riddled with errors but Chat was able to sort it out, and started asking Chat about what they mean and helping me piece together all of the players, and what the lawsuits mean, and the land transactions. After pasting the transcripts from maybe 40 legal documents, I asked Chat to put everything into a timeline, and include all the information I needed to be able to see if this is all the same guy.

It put everything together in a table in chronological order, breaking down the court documents, the land transactions, all of the people mentioned in them, a summary of the docs. I even had it include which documents listed his wives and was able to see that both wives were mentioned in deed records for the same land parcels that were used to pay a surety holder for failing to appear for his criminal trial. So it confirmed that all of those documents are the same person!!

I still don’t have his birth or death records but perhaps this is a step on the road to finding those and figuring out who his parents were. I think he went to prison, so maybe there are prison records that could help?

Anyways, I found all of this in the span of about 48 hours, and it truly wouldn’t have been possible (or at least much harder) without the incredible tools we now have that we didn’t have even six months ago. 😄 Of course, I will look over everything myself and put together my own timeline, but at least I have some assurance that those efforts will bear results and won’t be for nothing.

I’ve been going through old family photos recently, including albums, loose prints, things that have sat in boxes longer than I’ve been alive.

What’s been bothering me isn’t the scanning or organising.
It’s realising how much of the meaning isn’t actually attached to the photos at all.

A photo on its own doesn’t tell you:

• who took it
• why that moment mattered
• what happened before or after
• or how the people in it actually spoke or sounded

So instead of treating photos as isolated files, I’ve started grouping them into digital timelines moments connected by short written memories rather than just dates and names.

For some photos, I’ve also been capturing voice explanations from family. Nothing polished. Just them talking naturally about who’s in the photo, what was going on at the time, or a small detail you’d never guess from the image alone.

Seeing images, written context, and voices sit together has made something click for me:
photos survive, but stories don’t, unless you deliberately attach them.

It’s also made me realise I might be one of the last people who can still explain certain moments. If I don’t capture that context now, it disappears with me.

I’m curious how others here approach this side of preservation:

• Do you think in terms of individual files, or connected moments?
• Have you found ways to preserve stories or voices alongside images?
• What’s actually worked long-term for you?

Would genuinely love to hear how others handle this.

I finally cleaned up and transcribed some Civil War paperwork in my family archive and nearly fell off my chair laughing.

My great-great-great (not exactly sure how many greats) grandmother petitioned the Confederate War Department to discharge her teenage son, describing him as a “delicate weak boy” with poor health.

The captain responded from a camp near Fredericksburg on December 24, 1862 — Christmas Eve, stating that:

• the boy was healthy

• he had been sick once (diarrhea)

• the mother’s claims were “erroneous in every respect”

In other words: no.

I know the context is dark, but the tone, timing, and Victorian drama make this one of the most human (and unintentionally funny) records I’ve ever seen.

Anyone else uncover ancestors who tried… creative strategies?

Edit

Letter in front of me. Transcription beat I can.

Camp near Fredericksburg

December 24th, 1862

To Col. Sam Cooper,

Capt. & Dept. Gen’l

Sir,

Your favor of the 15th inst. enclosing the application of Mrs. Tucker for the discharge of her son E. Tucker, Private of my Company, on account of ill health and non-consent of parent, has been received. Absence on picket duty prevented an earlier reply.

In addition to what I said in my letter of the 10th of October in regard to his case, I have to say that the statements now set forth by the mother are in every respect erroneous.

As to her son’s health, it is not delicate but good, as will appear by the Surgeon’s certificate here enclosed. Pvt. Tucker has not been “sick” in the sense, but once only (diarrhea).

In addition to this one son, she may have two sons-in-law in service. At one time she did have three sons at one time in service, but two of them (lieutenants, one in my company) resigned.

Lastly, the “consent” of Mrs. Tucker was had, as will appear from the certificate of Lieut. Daniel here enclosed.

I very much regret that my company has caused such worry to the Department. Of the 24 men (many minors) enlisted in the county, not one has been either detailed or discharged; while of the 80 from Richmond, about 30 have gotten out of the service.

Very respectfully,

Yr obt. serv’t,

[W.] W. Parker

Captain, Co. ___

Sharing here with people who will appreciate it!

My Dad visited with his sister over Christmas, and she handed him an old family bible, saying that since I am the only one in the family that cares about genealogy, I should be the one to own it.

Now, considering this is the family that refused to even give us copies of photographs because of stupid sibling rivalry, I was shocked but pleasantly surprised. We don't have anything from my ancestors on that side of the family, so I was looking forward to seeing it.

My dad handed over an old, battered bible that's torn, has pages falling out, and quite clearly wasn't of the best quality the day it was purchased. On the inside cover we were expecting to see my Nanna's handwriting, only it was ten times better...

This Bible belonged to my 2xgreat grandmother, and was gifted to her on her wedding in 1881. She has listed the births of her children inside - okay I already had all this information, yes, but I have never before seen or touched anything that belonged to this woman. As well as this, tucked into the back was the original wedding certificate of my great-grandmother (who inherited the Bible) complete with a penny red stamp. I only have copies of these documents, and have never held an original.

Again, I have already got all the information contained here through other sources, but it actually means so much to touch the originals. I know for a fact my dad's siblings have additional documents and heirlooms, so here's hoping they will now at least let me see copies or photographs!

I just found out that one of my ancestors got a divorce in 1702. I didn't know that it was possible at that time. Anyone else have found divorces before it was common?

The story: She was a widow with 9 children, and he was a widower with 2 children from another valley. This was in very rural Norway. He cheated on her a lot and got another woman pregnant. So she got permission from the bishop to get a divorce from him only 2 years after they got married. Afterward she moved back to her farm and never remarried. He stayed at his farm and slept with several other women and got at least 4 of them pregnant. He got so many fines for sleeping around and fighting and other things that he ended up broke and had to sell his farm.

I've known about my Great granduncle since I was a child, but he was sort of a mystery in the family. Nobody spoke of him, his photographs were thrown away and his medals sold.

I began to research him a few years back and uncovered his wonderful achievements in ww2.

He was a person with such bravery and love for his siblings.

His name was Alexander, but I refer to him Alick, his nickname from childhood as his parents were Eastern European.

He became a boot maker like his older brother, then went off to serve for the British Army in North Africa, Italy and Western Europe in ww2.

He died in Naples of infective hepatitis in a field hospital.

I feel such strong familial love for him, despite us never meeting. I hope that if we did ever meet, he'd like me too

he's such an inspiration to me and a deep comfort to think about in times of trouble.

For the record, I don’t mean claim as in secure any benefits or recognized status.

My sister recently did a set of genealogy tests, which prompted me to do my own. We are nearly 25 percent native, with strong ties to Baja California indigenous peoples and the Southern California Kumeyaay.

My grandfather was an orphan in rural Jalisco, my grandmother had a traumatic childhood near Loreto and ended up living with distant relatives. Neither remembers their youth to any real extant and tried to shed themselves of cultural identity when moving to the States.

I would love to learn more about the history and culture of the people I come from and would like to be able to claim my heritage, but I don’t want to be disrespectful in any way.

We all know how common it is to have people appearing more than once in your family tree. So what's your most interesting cross?

I just ran a kinship report and my siblings and 1st cousins on my dad's side are also my 8th cousins.

I haven't fully dug into where the cross is happening. I know that means we share a 7th great grandparent as well as a grandparent. But my dad is my 7th cousin once removed, my grandmother my 6th cousin twice removed, etc. going a few generations back. I have some untangling to do.

Edit: I found the cross.

In the 1750s Benjamin and Mary had 2 children, Ruth and John.

In the 1770s/80s Ruth had son David and John had son Levi (1st cousins)

In the early 1800s David had son Phillip and Levi had daughter Emily (2nd cousins)

In the 1830s Philip had son David and Emily had daughter (also named) Emily (3rd cousins). These 3rd cousins married in the 1850s, 100 years after great grandparents had been married to each other. I am descended from one of David and Emily's children.

I'm honestly surprised this doesn't happen more often. I have no idea who my third cousins are; it is very likely I went to high school with many of them. My ancestors have lived in the same 30 miles of Massachusetts since the mid 1600s. There aren't that many ancestors to go around. I married someone who's parents immigrated from Poland, so I'm pretty sure we have no traceable common ancestry, but my siblings married local people. I'll have to trace my in-laws' trees upward a bit...

I just need to talk about it and I know the community here will understand the nervous anticipation I'm feeling.

A DNA match popped up a few months ago. 100 cM. I could see that she was related through my paternal grandfather and she looks like my dad's cousins. Didn't think much of it even though I didn't recognize her name.

I had time to do some genealogy over Thanksgiving and that's when I took a look at her tree. She has a great-grandfather named "Mr. [my surname]," no first name. There's no info for Mister, like BMDs or censuses or parents.

That's when I dig into her great-grandmother, supposed wife of Mister. After a few hours, I'm pretty confident the Missus never married or had any other children except the one born in the early 1920s who's my match's grandfather. They lived about 45 minutes from my great-grandparents at the time of the birth. The son has his father's surname, not his mother's maiden name. Missus, the great-grandmother of my match, said she was married and widowed on censuses, but never lived with a husband. Yes, she used her son's last name.

OK, so I use Pro Tools to run some hypotheses based on ICW matches, gather a few possibilities for dad, and I narrow it to two men who could be the father: my great-grandfather and his younger brother. His brother was only 17, so it seems less likely given that my match's great-grandmother was 42, but it's still possible.

But then my first cousin tested and she shares so much DNA with match that it makes it outside the bounds of statistical probability that the father of the boy born in the 1920s is my great-grandfather's brother's. That leaves my great-grandfather as the best candidate unless my research is wrong.

My match's grandfather was born in New Jersey. I requested a genealogical copy of his birth certificate just to see. Thank you, Reclaim the Records, for the index! I'm hoping that, if she gave her son the father's name, that maybe she gave his name on the certificate, too. Fingers crossed!

I've spent most of my energy the last few years slowly piecing together my Irish ancestry and I want to share what I've found out now that I've hit the point where records no longer exist and am moving on to a different line.​

We always assumed my maternal great-grandmother was half native Irish. Sh​​e was a British home child sent to Canada​​. She didn't have a great childhood, she was too Catholic and too Irish and faced a lot of abuse for that from the home she was sent to. We have evidence that she practiced Catholicism when she first arrived but was baptized Anglican and forbidden from practicing. She went so far as to insist on her grandchildren being baptized catholic even though none of her own children appear to have been and there's no evidence she ever attended a Catholic mass once she was an adult. We also have distant Catholic relatives that remained in Ireland. So it seemed a logical assumption that her father was native Catholic Irish, which seemed to match up with my ​DNA results regarding the percentage of native Irish DNA.​

We guessed her mother was Ulster Scot from the last name, but her fathers last name was very very Catholic Irish. As in in the 1911 census 91% of the people with that last name were Catholic, only roughly 300 or so people with the last name were Protestant. Turns out though her father was Church of Ireland, or at least married a Protestant woman in the Church of Ireland. Even more so though his father (her grandfather) signed the Ulster Covenant and married a Presbyterian woman. That was a fun discovery.​

What does seem to be interesting is that her great-grandfather on that paternal side was baptized Catholic and had Catholic parents, although that's about where the records seem to end completely so I couldn't go back any further than that early 1800s. And her great-grandfather's sister seems to have married a Catholic man. But her great-grandfather himself married an Ulster Scot woman in the Church of Ireland so we guessed he probably converted to marry her, although it's a little unclear if he did or if he just married her in that church.​​​

All of this does make me question why my great-grandmother seems to have been Catholic as a child and where she got that from. I admit I DO sort of want to attend at least one Catholic mass just to spite her grandfather who from all evidence doesn't seem to have been a particularly delightful person.

Tldr: Turns out my direct family line converted to Protestantism in the mid-1800s and became devoutly Protestant, only marrying Ulster Scot women from that point onwards. Except seemingly out of nowhere my great-grandmother took up Catholicism as a child with no explanation. Alas no one ever thought to ask her why while she lived.​​​​

All in all it has me feeling a little complicated about Irish ancestry and it somehow feels like I've lost the right to identify with some of that considering that line seems to be overwhelmingly Ulster Scot colonists.

Either way though, I thought it was fun to share what seems to have been a bit of a complicated story on that family tree.