Embarrassing Family Secrets Revealed

[Ammonsa 308]

Well, it's not, that much. Only a slight fraction of the populace were convicts, most people were immigrants, especially in the gold rushes. 

[PrimaGaga 1025]

Oh. I guess thats my American knowledge for yeah.

[Otis McNutt 395]

Its still weird to me that Australia is a nation based off of a place people were exiled to. Pretty cool though.

So was America. After America was colonized the British decided to ship there convicts here instead of Australia because it was cheaper.

[Knuckle 484]

Yeah Georgia was a convict colony I believe.

[Nightingale 9]

still is

[Otis McNutt 395]

 I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family, singin' and dancin' down in Mississippi. 

[Treemotan 201]

My paternal (great?)-grandfather's older brother was a Nazi and worked with the SS. And apparently was pretty rad with Himmler.

 

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Edited 19 Mar 2013 by Treemotan (see edit history)

[Sahaqiel 1232]

My grandfather on my dad's side left my grandmother and raised an entirely separate black family. I have a bunch of black half-uncles and half-aunts and a black stepgrandma that I've never met.

[Cirt 612]

My paternal grandfather ran weapons for the CIA in Cuba before Fidel Castro's coup. Or during the revolution, idk. That's pretty much why my dad is afraid to visit Cuba lol.

 

Dunno if this counts, but it was a secret kept from me for a long time. When I was nine my maternal grandfather died from "old age." Years later I learned he was murdered by a crack addict looking for money for drugs. There was a struggle in my grandfather's apartment and he was killed. The guy who did it is in jail, thankfully.

 

That same grandfather was divorced from my grandmother because he came out of the closet when my mom was in high school. Never understood why I had five grandparents until then (grandma remarried). I was about 17 when I learned all this lol

[LLmao ?✊? 1276]

Coincidentally, a cousin of mine murdered someone when looking for drugs, cirt. I don't know if its in bad taste to say. But this actually happened.

My mom's half of the family was like Irish and British and poor and alcoholics. They are focused in Oklahoma and California, which would historically make them pieces of shit. Like to be an Irish person and and "okie" must be the worst hell.

My dad's side of the family is like pure Cajun from the asshole of Louisiana. My grandpa picked cotton as a kid. His parents spoke French as their first language. I thought that was neat. But also hilariously podunk-y. Like how insanely isolated and rural do you have to be to naturally speak French as your first language in the US? For multiple generations they were natural born citizens. I know that things were different when we start talking about things 90-100 years ago, especially in the South. Just interesting.

I'm shit

[pheonix561 2080]

On my mom's side of the family, I'm a descendant of William Brewster, the leader of the Pilgrims who first settled america. On my dad's side, I'm a descendant of the captain of the mayflower, or some higher up from the ship.

I am the manifestation of all the original white male anglo saxon protestant oppression america is still dealing with today.

Sorry guys.

[LLmao ?✊? 1276]

"dealing with"?

Pheo... Thank you for all that you've done for this nation. You have built, guided, raped, and literally and metaphorically whipped this nation into its shape.

[Chimetals 344]

while were on genetics: i have no idea what my percentages are, and neither do my parents. asking them has only ever yielded things like "um, well, youre part polish, and your dad has red hair, so theres some irish, uhhhhhhh" and so forth.

 

despite my parents telling me where babies (actually) come from from the first day i asked, they skipped over some other things, which resulted in:
1) i didnt realize that im not even remotely related to one of my "cousins" for 19ish years. this came about when i mentioned my one cousin to my other cousin, who had the response of "who???". my mom had three brothers, my dad was an only child. so any of my cousins should also be her cousins.

 

2) i thought my grandparents on my dads side were dead for about the same amount of time. turns out, they just never talked to us.

 

3) it took me over fifteen years to count my uncles against my moms brothers before realizing i had one extra uncle. turns out, that aunt (i think it was the aunt) was my moms cousin, which made my two "cousins" second cousins or something. my parents never told us our real relation because they thought it would be too confusing. my best friend growing up had step-siblings, siblings, half-siblings, and that was just the part of her family that was in illinois. her paternal family/stepfamily was in texas. and i could keep all of them straight. even now, i know her relation to everyone in her (local) family (i never knew any of her texas family by name, so tracking that is impossible.)

[Knuckle 484]

Apparently one of my uncles married two other women that I have never met or heard of. I only found this out a year ago.

 

I guess it makes sense that the failed marriages go unmentioned but I still feel weird having not known I had two ex-relatives 

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Apparently my mom's father changed the family name due to a murderous blood feud.

 

I should ask her to tell me more later.