The theme for Week 39 is "Surprise." Genealogy can be filled with surprises, both good and bad. This week, write about something that was surprising to you or that would have been surprising to your ancestors. Click here to check out all of the themes for 2023.
Discovering surprises is what keeps me engaged in genealogy. It's what makes this pursuit endlessly fascinating. Over four decades of research, I've encountered numerous surprises, some more remarkable than others. Here, I share my top five, though they're just a glimpse of the astonishing tales hidden in my family history.
The most astonishing revelation came when I learned that my maternal grandparents were wed in 1929, contrary to the 1926 date that their daughters had been told and that had been reported in their obituaries. The truth was concealed to protect my mother, the eldest, from knowing she was born out of wedlock, and that her biological father was not the man she believed him to be.
Another jaw-dropping moment was when I uncovered evidence of a third child born to my 2nd great-grandparents. While searching for my great-grandfather's birth record, I stumbled upon a birth certificate for a younger sibling born ten years later. This mysterious child was never named, and further information about their fate eluded me. There's no mention of this enigmatic family member in any family references.
My father's paternal grandparents held their own surprise. My father had always been under the impression that they had only one child who died young. However, during my research for his birth or death certificate, I discovered that their youngest daughter had passed away at just eight months old. My father initially questioned the accuracy of my findings, but I presented both the birth and death records, both of which confirmed his grandparents as the parents.
Yet another revelation reshaped the family legend surrounding my father’s paternal grandmother. It was widely believed that she had run away with another man, only to be dragged back home by her daughters. The actual story, revealed by historical records, was quite different. She and her husband had divorced in 1924. She supposedly lived with another man afterward (though I couldn't locate a marriage record for them). Tragically, that man passed away. Surprisingly, my father's grandparents reunited and remarried in 1936. Their marriage certificate not only validated their reunion but also divulged that their first marriage occurred on November 6, 1895, their divorce on November 6, 1924, and that they had only been married to each other.
Rounding out my top five astonishments involves my 3rd great-grandmother. When I obtained her husband's Civil War pension records, I discovered that she had been collecting his death benefit while he resided in a veterans' home. It wasn't until he applied for disability benefits that her payments were halted, with the disability benefit awarded to him. But the intrigue didn't end there; I stumbled upon a hint suggesting a second marriage between my 3rd great-grandmother and her 2nd cousin on her mother's side. This union occurred after her pension payments were stopped, and her 2nd cousin began receiving Civil War pension benefits. When they married, she received some money from that pension. Later, after her first husband's death, she reapplied for his death benefit. When asked if she had remarried after her husband's death, she truthfully answered no because, in fact, she had remarried before his passing. This twist revealed how cunningly my 3rd great-grandmother had navigated the system.
What surprises have you encountered in your own genealogy research? If you've yet to stumble upon any, my hunch is that you're not digging deep enough. (Ha ha ha).
Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!
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