Shedding Light on our Deep, Dark, Family Secrets

There is no such thing as a perfect family or an ideal family history. History simply is. Accepting who and what our ancestors were, and what, where and why they did this or that is essential to understanding who we are today.

Who We Are

We are farmers, doctors, carpenters, educators, and businessmen. We are salesmen, servicemen, congressmen, and craftsmen. We are Agnostics and Apostolics, Baptists and Buddhists; Catholics and Congregationalists; Puritans and Presbyterians; Methodists, Mormons and Muslims. We are Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Eagles, Elks, Rotarians, and Freemasons. We are Democrats, Greens, Independents, Libertarians, Republicans, and Socialists. We are Redcoats and Revolutionaries. We’ve worn the Blue and the Gray. We have waged wars and marched for peace. We have run rum and busted barrels. We have demonstrated for and against Women’s Suffrage, Civil Rights, Equal Rights, and the Freedom to Choose. We have burned our bras and our draft cards. We have served time as law makers and law breakers. We are educated and ignorant. We are rich and we are poor. We are FAMILY!

It has been said that: “A family is love that knows no bounds that is kindled by kindness, affection, selflessness, concern, heartache, sympathy, comfort, joy, sadness [and] laughter… A family is unity in a world of separation. A family is harmony in a world of discord. …[A family is] sometimes…together, even though apart; other times apart, even while together. …A family is an institution with a strong constitution [and] a changing disposition [with the] occasional contradiction, but always with an intuition for love.”

No family is perfect and no family’s history is ever complete. There are always personal secrets that follow individuals to the grave. Oft times what is revealed through genealogical research is a complete surprise to those who knew, or thought they knew, an individual. Finding the unknown fact is one of the most entertaining and addicting elements of family history research. Discovering that Uncle Fudd ran off to be a shrimp boat captain at age 14, or that Auntie Em was a burlesque dancer, or that Grampa George listed an unknown child in his will—these facts add to our understanding of the individuals that make up our family and bring color to our otherwise black-and-white data.

Unfortunately, some people try to cover-up or ignore history that may not reflect their current socio-political or religious point of view. They feel as if they are somehow “tainted” by the actions of those who lived decades or centuries before. What a shame. Yes, we did have horse thieves in our family! Yes, some fought for “the other side!” Yes, some of our ancestors supported this group or that! Yes, some in our family were polygamists (and some were not monogamists)! Yes, some in our family owned slaves! Yes, yes, yes! We do have skeletons in our family’s closets! But we must let these skeletons out in order to understand the who, what, when, why, and where’s of our family history. Our ancestors’ history is what and who we are today. Their blood flows through our veins. We owe them our respect and thanks for whatever they have contributed to our family’s story – good and “bad.” And every one of our ancestors has a story to tell!

Let’s shine some light into some of the deep-dark corners that so many in our family seem all too willing to avoid —

“Did you know we are related to…”

It seems as if every family has a story…and it usually starts with “two brothers” who did this or that! My favorite story from my own family recounts how one of my ancestors took the train from Jamestown, Virginia to meet the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock! (If you don’t see what’s funny here, check your history!) And that’s the problem – we often don’t check our history. We just accept what 90 year-old Great-Aunt Jenny told Cousin Bob’s Mother’s Sister’s Nephew. Of course, by the time everyone has changed and embellished it, the story is wholly inaccurate. For instance, we have heard from every Carson cousin that we are “directly” related to Kit Carson, that he is a brother or uncle of one of our ancestors. However, the facts just don’t pan out.

Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson was born in Kentucky in 1809 and moved with his family to Missouri before he was 2. Kit’s ancestry is very well established and does not, according to our research, cross with our Carson line in recorded history. As far as we know, our Carson’s were never in the same place as his Carson’s – at least not here in North America. That is not to say that we don’t have a common ancestor somewhere in history. We almost certainly do. We just can’t prove it yet. So the stories of Kit dropping by for Sunday dinner are probably not accurate.

It would be nice to be related to Kit. He is a great character in history. It would also be nice to be related to Pocahontas, or Napoleon, or Czar Nicholas I…but we are not. In genealogy, stories are just stories until they are proven with documented facts.

Revolutionary War Patriots – the Tories.

Contrary to revisionist history, the American Revolutionary War was not as “popular” as our high school history books have lead us to believe. The American Revolution was, well, revolutionary! Colonies claiming independence and separating from a mother country had never been done before and many American Colonists were not convinced it was a good idea. Half of the population of the British-American Colonies were either ambivalent to a separation from England or actively against it. In fact, a significant minority of the British forces in America were made up of Royalist Colonial Militias. And they were very effective at what they were asked to do, especially in the South.

While we would all love to claim descendancy from the likes of Paul Revere and George Washington, the fact is that we may, at the same time, claim descendancy from the likes of Benedict Arnold. It does not matter if our ancestors fought for King or for Country, we must not belittle their patriotism or sacrifice because they supported what popular history has claimed as the “enemy.” After all, as Ben Franklin once said: “History is invented by the winners as an excuse to hang the losers.” Let us not be guilty of “stringing up” our ancestors for following their conscience and who greatly contributed to world history!

Great Grampa Owned a Slave

Historical Truth: A system of using the enforced labor of individuals, or groups of individuals, existed in the American Colonies and United States from before 1619 to 1865.

Like many of our early European-American Ancestors, the first Africans in America arrived as Indentured Servants via Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. From 1619 to about 1640, Africans could earn their freedom working as laborers and artisans for the European settlers. These African workers could then, at some agreed upon point in time, become free people and enjoy at least some of the liberties that other new settlers enjoyed. By 1640, Maryland became the first colony to institutionalize slavery. In 1641, Massachusetts, in its written legislative Body of Liberties, stated that "bondage was legal servitude,” changing the conditions of the African workers for generations as they became chattel slaves who could be bought and wholly owned by their masters.

The rising demand for sugar, coffee, cotton, and tobacco in the world market created a greater demand for slaves in other countries and territories as well. Spain, France, the Dutch, and English were in competition for the cheap labor needed to work their colonial plantations and produce those lucrative goods. The slave trade was so profitable that, by 1672, the Royal African Company chartered by Charles II of England became the richest shipper of human slaves to the mainland of the Americas. The slaves were so valuable to the open market that they were sometimes called "Black Gold."

If your ancestors lived in the Americas or Europe during this period from the early 1600’s to 1865, they benefited directly from the institution of slavery – whether they personally owned slaves or not! Certainly, those who lived in the Southern Colonies or States were more likely to have actually bought, sold and traded African Slaves, but they were not the only Americans tainted by the practice. If an ancestor was engaged in the Sea Trades in New England before 1790, they almost certainly transported slaves at some point in their journey. If they bought, sold or grew sugar, cotton, rice, or tobacco, they benefited directly from slave labor. If an ancestor was engaged in any form of intensive agriculture in the Southern Colonies or States before 1865 they almost certainly engaged slave labor and probably owned at least a few slaves.

To us today, the practice of slavery is reprehensible. It is difficult to find any justification whatsoever in such a practice. However, many of our ancestors considered it a “necessary evil” if not a “cherished, but peculiar institution.” They did what they had to do to compete in the marketplace of values of their day. To ignore the fact that our ancestors may have owned slaves and/or profited from the institution of slavery not only blinds us to our own history but continues to cheapen the lives of those who contributed so much to the development of the Americas while struggling under the burden of slavery.

There is, of course, another unmentionable element regarding slavery and family history- FACT: It was not uncommon for slave owners and traders to sexually abuse their female slaves. It is therefore probable that those of us who are descended from slave traders and owners may also have a number of unidentified African-American cousins. The shame in these “unmentionable” acts is long in the past and it is now time that we accept our ancestors’ for who they were, realize that their deeds were theirs alone, and embrace all of our cousins regardless of skin color or ethnicity.

Mormons Amongst Us

It is a curious truth that, when someone brings up the word “Mormon” in conversation with some branches of our family, they are often greeted with silence or hostility. A topic so divisive must be touched upon here!

In 1820, a fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith walked out of a grove of trees near his home in Upstate New York and claimed that he had seen, and talked with, God. He was immediately regarded by some as a Seer and by others a Charlatan.

In 1830 Smith published The Book of Mormon which he claimed to be the record of a group of ancient Israelites that had found their way to the Americas and the appearance of the resurrected Jesus Christ among them. This record, Smith claimed, had been written in “Reformed Egyptian” on gold plates and given to him by an Angel sent from God. He claimed to have translated these plates “by the gift and power of God” which would be the only way one such as Smith, who had just a third-grade education, could complete such a task. This same year Smith organized his followers into a church and began to preach what he called the “Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Many of the “new and improved” doctrines and practices of Mormonism were, in our ancestors’ time and ours, controversial to say the least. Joseph Smith claimed to be a Prophet of God but many claim he was a fraud. An open canon of scripture brought shouts of joy to some and shouts of heresy from others. The call for these “Latter-day Saints” to build up “a kingdom of God” attracted thousands of converts to settlements in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and the Great American West. It also attracted animosity, persecution and charges of sedition and treason. Of course the one doctrine and practice amongst the early Mormons that most surely brought down the wrath of neighbors and governments is what they are still best known for today -- even though it was never widely practiced and was officially stopped in the late 1800’s -- that is, the practice of Plural Marriage, or Polygamy.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ beginnings and history are both humble and remarkable. From just 6 members in a log cabin in 1830 to over 13 Million followers today in over 200 countries, the history of the “Saints” and that of a number of our ancestral lines is inexorably connected.

Many of our ancestors who lived in the mid-to-late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries with surnames of ADAIR, CARSON, FISH, OWENS, REED, ROBISON, STEELE, TYLER, WARNER, WEBB, and associated lines, were early Mormon converts and active participants in the beginnings and tumultuous early history of the Latter-day Saints. Some arose to prominence in the Church. Some abandoned their new-found faith. Some followed Brigham Young to the valleys of Utah and beyond and made the desert “blossom as a rose.” Some stayed behind and became leading citizens in their communities in the East and Midwest. Some gave their lives for their beliefs. Some traded their beliefs for more comfortable lives. None were perfect. Some were even polygamists! All made great sacrifices as individuals and families.

Today, nearly every line in our family includes at least one Mormon. To turn a cold shoulder or a blind eye to Mormon History is to lose an important part of who we are and how we got here. Again, history simply is. One doesn’t have to become Mormon or believe as they do to appreciate what these pioneers experienced in their search for spirituality and religious liberty…something they were repeatedly denied by mobs and governments. We must recognize that the Mormon tradition has been, and continues to be, an important part of our own family’s history. The stories of these Pioneer’s faith and tribulations can, and should be, an inspiration to us all.

Molly Had a Baby

Many, if not most, of our family’s current generation include someone who was conceived and born out of wedlock. Today the stigma of unwed parents is almost non-existent. To our current society it’s no big deal. But this was not the case just a few decades ago when pregnant teenagers were sent away to hide their “condition” and give birth out of the public view. Many of these babies were adopted out and very few remained a part of the social fabric of the families from which they biologically descend. Even today, these birth mothers often live with “the secret” and only a few know that somewhere out there is a brother or sister, niece or nephew, grandchild or cousin that may, someday, like to know from whom, exactly, they descend.

Deception may have been socially necessary in the 1950’s, but it clearly is not today. There are generations of individuals searching for who they are and they may never find out if we keep deceiving ourselves, and those close to us, about our “unmentionable” past. The most transforming element of personal progression is admitting to ourselves and others that we are not, and have never been perfect and accepting ourselves for who we are. Our ancestors weren’t perfect, we are not, our children are not, and that’s OK! It would be appropriate and very beneficial to all if we were to acknowledge and document the facts if we have parented a child that we did not raise.

While it is never appropriate to seek out those that have been loved and raised by others in order to gratify our own desires or satisfy a personal curiosity, it could be very helpful to those searching for a biological parent if we were to leave genealogical “breadcrumbs” for them to follow. Adoptive agencies and organizations fade away and lose records, but the facts – names, dates and places – properly recorded and preserved in a family history may provide someone with that critical piece of information that may illuminate their own search for their roots.