Family Secrets

Family "Table Talk" Genealogy Stories

Family Secrets, How Are They Uncovered?

Family secrets are well, just hard.  Instead of telling the secrets that have come to light in my family, like my family that suddenly appeared when my father always said he thought his father was adopted, or the story about DNA relatives connections, I decided to write about what it's like when family historians are like nosy neighbors. 

Secrets Told By The Family Historian Can  Be Equal To 

 "The Nosy Neighbors of the Past (and Skeptical Cousins of the Present)"

Have you ever met that one neighbor who knows everything about everyone? The one who mysteriously knows that the Smiths painted their kitchen blue last summer, that the Johnsons' dog actually belongs to their cousin, and that the Millers' eldest son was born just a little too soon after the wedding?

Well, that’s basically us, the family historians—except our gossip is 100 years old, and instead of peeking over fences, we’re digging through census records, obituaries, and DNA results like investigative journalists on a mission.

While your average nosy neighbor might say, “I heard from Linda at the post office that Bob’s been working late a lot…”we say, “According to the 1900 Census, great-grandpa claimed to be born in Kentucky, but in 1910, he said Indiana. Suspicious.”

But here’s the thing—sometimes the real detective work isn’t just sifting through dusty records. Sometimes, it’s sitting at the holiday table, during what I dubbed "table talk" trying to untangle the web of current family stories that don’t quite add up.

Like when Uncle Charley insists that great-grandma was “full-blooded Cherokee,” even though DNA testing suggests otherwise (and the only Native connection you can find is that she once had a dreamcatcher in her kitchen). Or when cousin Linda claims that grandpa definitely played professional baseball, but a quick search only turns up his name in the local bowling league.

And don’t even get me started on the mystical family fortune that’s always just about to be found. “Great-aunt Betty swore we had an inheritance waiting in England!” Sure, sure—right next to the missing crown jewels and a long-lost title of nobility, I’m sure.

Family history isn’t just about uncovering big secrets—it’s about sorting fact from fiction, peeling back the layers of well-meaning embellishments, and gently (or not-so-gently) correcting cousin Bob when he insists that great-grandpa came over on the Mayflower. (No, Bob, he was born in Cleveland.)

Of course, some secrets are real, and genealogy has a way of shaking them loose. And as the saying goes, the living are due respect, the dead deserve the truth. So we keep digging—through archives, through oral histories, and through Uncle Jerry’s latest revisionist take on our ancestry—because every family has a story.

It’s just our job to make sure it’s the right one. 

Or at least as right as reasonable exhaustive research proves.  

"And That's a Wrap

Keeping our family story alive one 

thread at a time."

Barbara 

Until next week, week 10 prompt: Siblings