I think human nature being what it is, every generation has this kind of stuff in it - they just took more pains to hide it all in times past i.e. they didn't talk about it, and skeletons were kept more firmly in the closet. Scratch the surface of most families and you find somewhere in the history abandonment, bigamy, shotgun weddings, apparent sibs who are actually mother and child, kids by other fathers, you name it. We've got some doozies in mine, going back a long way, and there are many suspicious events we'll never know the whole truth about (such as as my husband's 14 year old great grandmother marrying a 27 year old back in 1850...first child born 4 months later). M.

In article <aab1b15a-cd0c-4f3c-9d5c-059dafd2924c@e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, Mary_Gordon@tvo.org wrote: > I think human nature being what it is, every generation has this kind > of stuff in it - they just took more pains to hide it all in times > past i.e. they didn't talk about it, and skeletons were kept more > firmly in the closet. Mary- Some skeletons are kept more firmly than others. One ancester reportedly spent time in prison, wrongly accused of murder. There are at least three versions of that story in the family. One distant cousin was reportedly sold at age 13 to a bachelor farmer in his 30s. The family bible says they were married when she was 17. After a bumpy start, they went on to have several children and a long marriage. The one no one talks about is the (white) uncle who reportedly married a black woman! Fred