Top 10 Dark Family Reveals on Who Do You Think You Are

[@MsMojo]

Have you uncovered anything shocking in your family’s history? Let us know below, and check out our video of the Top 10 Celeb Reactions to Who Do You Think You Are - kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXbcpIqkhaygesk

[@janataylor5520]

I found biological family, some tragedies & some triumphs.

[@charlayned]

I knew my paternal grandfather was an abusive alcoholic. He and my granny split up when the kids were little, never divorced. I wasn't allowed around him, we saw him I think twice before his death. I was tracing my ancestry back and found a notation for him being in prison for 2 years. I had a lot of trouble tracking down why, the prison records are somewhere in a box in the state archives and they couldn't find them. I ended up researching old newspapers and finally found a story. They lived in a small town. Three of the brothers, including my grandfather, were having trouble with the way their sister was treated by her husband. A fight started and my grandfather went home, got a gun, and shot the man, who died. Because of the circumstances with the spousal abuse, he wasn't charged with murder but with manslaughter, so it was a lower sentence. But that was quite a shock. This was in the 1920s and I had never heard anything about it from my dad or my granny. I have all of it documented with the newspaper clippings and the story on the gravestone page of the man he killed.

[@MattWolfe1019]

I really haven't found anything shocking about my ancestors. I still do research to try and find some answers to some unanswered questions. Like I found out that my 2 times great grandparents on my mom's side got divorced back in the 1920s or 1930s possibly the 1940s and I asked my grandmother about it. She said that my 2 times great grandmother one day became fed up with her husband's behavior. He was an abusive alcoholic and he probably cheated a lot. One day she up and left him and their own kids. About a week later she tried to come back home to see her kids so she made a little effort to see her kids once. But her husband told her to leave and to never come back. Then at some point the marriage ended in divorce and since he told her not to come back that's why she never was in her kid's lives. Although back in those days getting divorced was very frowned upon and not being there for her kids even though her husband forbidded her from not seeing her kids it was a really sad situation all the way around.

[@wrenlark]

I found out my paternal great-grandparents' mothers were maternal half-sisters. i.e. they were first cousins.

[@ohcanada8084]

When I began doing real, in-depth research regarding my family’s genealogy, my Mom warned me I would find interesting tidbits and tragic stories; every family has their history.

[@Poopcopy]

Steve Bucemi hearing that depression runs in his family that far back and they were fighting and surviving give was uplifting

[@donnaleach8119]

“You make people afraid enough of something completely manufactured, and you can drive them to become murderers, cold-blooded murderers.” So much truth in this statement!

[@sineadmchugh4234]

There's a quote I heard, I cannot remember the source, "If someone can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities." I hope we all remember this and think for ourselves, using our intuition not our fear.

[@Sara-xk1ns]

It’s so true. It’s why, in my state at least, it’s mandatory for public schools to teach the history of the Holocaust. So we don’t repeat it ever again. It’s terrifying hearing people minimize the Holocaust nowadays or some even deny it all together. It’s delusional. I can understand something being so horrific that you want to refuse it happened, but it did. The least we can do is honor the lives lost and vow to never let it happen again.

[@j3ssijee]

​@@Sara-xk1ns19% of Finnish voters actually just gave their vote to someone who at some point called people who talk about the Holocaust "holo-babblers". I'm absolutely disgusted by the direction our country is going right now.

[@goldilox369]

​@@michelerobinson4815EXACTLY what I came here to say. I wonder if she can see the irony in what she said then vs what is happening right now. How do you (as a people) to from victims to using the same textbook genocide & propaganda techniques? It's breaking my heart to watch this catastrophe unfold. 💔

[@spicybeantofu]

Religion right there.

[@syria0110]

Rita Wilson's one broke my heart. She found out that her father was married to another woman before her mother and that they had a son. Sadly, she died three days after giving birth from eclampsia, with her half-brother dying a few months later.

[@trinaq]

It's sadly ironic that one of Sarah Jessica Parker's most iconic roles is of a witch, when some of her ancestors died during the Salem Witch Trials.

[@vobgreat]

I thought it was one ancestor, and even though originally found guilty. They were let go.

[@goldilox369]

​@@vobgreatit was. But it's still an interesting coincidence.

[@YuBeace]

There are so many modern witches out here WISHING that their “we’re the daughters of the witches you didn’t burn” edgy quotes were true.

[@eh1843]

The majority of people who were accused during the Salem Witch Trials were active Puritans. Claiming that they were witches continues the lies that were used to murder so many, many people.

[@hensonlaura]

🙄

[@erictaylor5462]

Steve Buscemi is a shockingly amazing person. Before his big break in acting he was a New York City fire fighter. On 9-11 he headed back to his old fire house and volunteered to help. Imagine being rescued on 9-11 and you realize the guy rescuing you is the "funny looking one" in Fargo.

[@kalevala29]

He was amazing in a movie called Parting Glances. I think it was one of his first film roles. It's worth checking out If you can find it, especially if you're a fan of Steve's work. It deals with gay themes and HIV, so some people might be uncomfortable with that.

[@MrThankman360]

Yea. He’s a cool dude.😊

[@johntrifunov9597]

or ur like Walter and say DONNIE THANK YOU FOR SAVING MY LIFE AND UR OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT

[@stefansnellgrove]

Chelsea reading what her grandmother Elizabeth had to say to her children “I have nothing” when asking for a small piece of bread is so heartbreaking no mother should go through that. Hearing her read it could feel Elizabeth’s pain of not being able to give her children their basic needs.

[@kristoffermangila]

Unfortunately this was the situation in Germany immediately after the Armistice of 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles, a devastating combination that sown the seeds of extremism and the eventual rise of such extremist ideologies like Nazism.

[@trinaq]

Lisa Kudrow getting emotional over the death of her ancestors really made me cry alongside her. It's disturbingly heartbreaking that so many innocent lives were claimed, all because of one sick mind. 💔

[@mildlygeekygirl6306]

I just would love to give her a big hug 🥺💔

[@GiannaKore]

It wasn't one sick mind.

[@goldilox369]

​@@GiannaKoreit was the brainwashed minds of an entire country. That's ok, though. Israel gets to be the Nazis this time against Palestinians. I guess they can take comfort in that. 🙄😒

[@spicybeantofu]

​@@GiannaKoreit was one person who started it.

[@hannehanskov7560]

@@spicybeantofu No it wasnt. ,and it wasnt even hitlers own ideas, but if hitler had been alone in his beliefs he would just have been thrown to a mental institution. it took many people,working together for a long time,figuring out how to use the laws illigaly ,to silence their opponents,to spread so much fear that those who wasnt killed was to afraid to speak up. Heydrich stripped people of their civil rights,the brown shirts beat up anybody who dared to say or be something else than they thought people to be. and thats just the beginning,later the Nuremberg laws and the fire in the reichstag ,were others working together in creating nazigermany.

[@JanieGal16]

My story: When I was 18 my dad confessed to me that my Granny wasn’t his biological mother. The next few years I got to learn about Virginia AKA Ginny (my dad’s biological mother.) She was put into the system right after she was born - either because it was the Great Depression and her family couldn’t afford to have a child, a teen mom, or immigrants who weren’t able to afford a child. Ginny wasn’t adopted until she was 3 years old and she went on to marry my Granpy and have 3 sons. When she was 27 she took her own life, just a week after my father turned 6. My dad not his brothers have any memories of her. My Granpy died in 2021, but before his passing he sent over a box filled with documents - adoption papers, medical records, their wedding certificate and pictures, everything. But there was something in Ginny’s medical records that caught my eye. For the first three years of her life while in the foster care system she was repeatedly abused. A broken arm at 2, a dislocated shoulder at 16 months, etc. But the one that made my blood run cold was that she had a Pap smear done when she was 9 months old. For the men in the comments or young folks who don’t know; you’re suppose to start getting Pap smears either when you’re sexually active or when you’re over 21 because of an increased risk of cervical cancer. I’ll repeat: they gave a NINE MONTH OLD a Pap smear. They gave A BABY - a literal infant - a Pap smear. Why are they giving a baby a Pap smear unless something truly nefarious happened?

[@judycroteau482]

That poor baby. It makes my heart bleed. Little wonder that she took her life later. Her whole life since infancy was filled with trauma. So sad.

[@JanieGal16]

@@judycroteau482 My dad has never seen those documents, and my mom and I swore that we would never show them to him. I’m taking this secret to my grave. On a wilder note: I was born 30 years after she died and few days after what would have been her 56th birthday. I’m a physical carbon copy of my Grandma Ginny. Her brother always said that a lot of my mannerisms were a lot like Ginny’s too.

[@wandamontgomery6030]

Oh wow.

[@merylmel]

Thank you for sharing. My family is riddled with mind twisting trauma. I sincerely wish you peace and freedom from such evil in the future.

[@liodemirror1775]

I am so sorry😢

[@Uncle_Smidge]

Steve Buscemi's such a sweetie. You just wanna hug him.

[@cmaden78]

He also was pretty cute as a fireman😊

[@bobert8618]

@@cmaden78my wife said the same thing 😅

[@NormaWills]

My maternal grandmother grew up thinking that her father died when she was little. So, that is the knowledge that she passed on to my mom. When I started researching the family tree, I couldn't find any record of him dying in Scotland. However, I did come across records of my great grandmother divorcing him. In the divorce records, it showed that he abandoned the family & moved to New York. From there, I was able to track his movements of travel to New York and then him living with some of his siblings for a little while. At the beginning of Prohibition, he died from wood alcohol poisoning in Bellevue Hospital.

[@WonderfulWorldofAwesomeness]

It’s shocking the stories our own relatives don’t know about their parents, the stories they were told due to decades of shame. It can make you rethink everything you thought you knew

[@lindaportuguesinha6065]

it was very common in those days to present a social lie or not to clarefy anything and let people believe whatever they would wish to. I think it is because people were more private back then and also less selfish. To not let a child know it was abandoned by a parent, it was prefeer to say it died. Its a white lie. But it is a lie. And ancestry studies reveals a lot of them. I had one similar. To hide a "shameful" desease, it was said the person died probably of poison. Or maybe they really believe that was the cause. It was an horrible death... taking in consideration one Dr. House episode years ago... something that will kill the brain slowly and make people behave irrationally up to loosing the hability to do everything. To keep this reality a secret... its tough. People didnt knew so they said the couple was not married, the child was not legit. It was wrong. They did married, the child was born 11 months later... Never knew the father because he died 3 months before - from that horrible desease that can "show up" sudently. The relatives were left to believe the two were not married and the child was elegit. In fact, It was their so loved mother the elegit one, that was born 4 weeks after her parent's marriage, which were cousins. Probably a marriage just to save face - since the woman was pregnant. So family can have it ALL WRONG. The mother NEVER spoke about her true origin and kept all a secret by marring into money.

[@RoseRaines]

Christina Applegate’s story was heart wrenching.

[@debbiehanson9201]

The final shot of that episode, of the gravestone her father had erected for his mother, made me cry, and I very seldom cry at anything on television or in the movies.

[@nanasewdear]

Courtney Cox and I have the same ancestry through her Berkeley, DeSpencer and Mortimer lines. What a dramatic time in English history!

[@darkangel_1978]

A few years ago, I found a cousin that I never knew existed, and we had a connection through our great grandfather. Apparently her great grandmother was his first wife, while mine was his second wife. With his first wife, he had a daughter, whom he abandoned. That daughter in turn, abandoned her son from her first marriage. I don't know if my grandma knew she had a half sister, but speaking to another cousin, she said that to the best of her knowledge, if her father (Grandma's brother) knew, he never said anything. Both my father's parents, rarely talked about family. We also found out that another one of Grandma's brothers, had an illegitimate son, whom he disowned. Because of it, the son turned to drugs and alcohol, which caused his daughter to distance herself, not just for her sake, but her daughter's as well. The daughter of the illegitimate son, was afraid to contact me and my two cousins, because she thought that we would hate her. We told her, "We will never punish you, for the sins of your grandparents. You and your Dad are innocent." After that, she got to talking to us, and is now at ease, knowing she wouldn't be shunned.

[@nardo218]

Lisa's was probably the most coldly brutal mass-murder I've heard on Who Do You Think Are. Stephen Fry in the British WDYTYA had a similar story of his family. The show has uncovered horrible horrible implications from records about slaves, but since slaves could not write down their own stories, and had few people to do it for them, we don't have the kind of first-hand accounts of casual, broad-spectrum, wanton brutality that we have of the Holocaust.

[@theorderofthebees7308]

There are accounts of formerly enslaved Black Americans - WPA in the 1930s collected former enslaved narratives and there are the books of Harriet Jacobs , Fredrick Douglass and others who wrote of their life stories.

[@mariahoulihan9483]

there are a lot of interviews of ex slaves made when they were elderly. They tell a harrowing tale.

[@debbiehanson9201]

I remember the poor woman who had witnessed the massacre crying that she had been unable to save anyone and how she worried what God would think of her for being unable to do so, though she had tried to save someone. It broke my heart that she felt so guilty when at least she had tried to do what was right. Although the ending of that episode, when she discovers a relative her father had thought long since dead was up lifting. And I did love it when she asked the historian she was working with about contacting this lost relative, and he simply handed her the phone book.

[@nardo218]

@@debbiehanson9201 I remember. Lisa was very kind to that woman. The phone book moment was sweet. :)

[@lunagabriella213]

I'm taking forever with my degree, but I did take a full year of history and cried so much all throughout 2019. I didn't expect that to happen at all. One of the many things that got to me was the overall horror of slavery, specifically the boat ride over. Those pictures and knowing what happened makes me want to vomit. They weren't just chained up like dogs. They were like human skewers, only left alive. I don't want to think of who all was r*ped. It could've been everyone. I already have some kind of generational trauma, but this sent home exactly what it is. You can't be treated more brutally than that.

[@sheronasims6783]

Suprised Allan Cumming not on here. Most shocking one i ever saw. His grandad died playing Russian roulette in Malaya

[@Lmay1787]

That one was shocking. I also thought Kim Cattrall’s dad having another family was shocking.

[@beatnikmary]

😲😲😲

[@shirleythomas9921]

Alan C’s episode was on the UK version of WDYTYA.

[@megannwalsh]

Please do a similar list with Finding Your Roots! It’s such a great show!

[@theorderofthebees7308]

Yes!!!

[@shenanigans3710]

Is that the one where the woman found out there her ancestors were BLACK slaveholders??

[@brmbkl]

@@shenanigans3710 out of 100s of episodes, you pick out one (that I never saw). Maybe you have an agenda?

[@MrSaraS]

My mom had learned that her great-grandfather had promised to marry her great-grandmother, gotten her pregnant and then died. She was doing some research along with me and we found him in the records. My mom was shocked to see that he died years after the twins where born! It unraveled that he had abandoned them, left her in public shame and she had reported him to the police. We still have to find the police reports to see what exactly it says. Crazy... All of my great-grandmothers siblings wanted nothing to do with her and her twin brother. They where a shame on the family. Explained a lot of the generational issues we have had on the womens side, that I myself are stryggling with and trying to break that cycle.

[@kirstimeretearnesen1202]

Sometimes one find that the story told in the family isn't alway true. One advice when you start out on genealogy is to talk to the elder in the family, but sometimes the story is re-written like in your case.

[@msoda8516]

Learning family history can be hard. My mother never knew her birth mother she was raised in foster care from the age of 3 until she aged out. My mother was mixed raced born in the early 1960’s her birth father was black and her mother was white. My mom passed away at 36 never knowing her roots so I made it my goal to find out. What I found was dark and ugly. My mom was the product of an affair her birth father never knew she existed until I found him. My grandmother was raised in an alcoholic family, with a lot of physical and mental abuse, and also suffered from alcoholism herself. She attempted to raise my mother, but after three years, of abuse from her father for having a half black child she gave her up because she met and became engaged to a man who did not want A half black child. I also discovered that my grandmother had five children total, including my mother, and ultimately lost custody of all of them because of her alcoholism, but refuse to let any of them be adopted. Sadly, they were raised in foster care and shuffled around.

[@samuelcollantes1175]

Lisa Kudrow, is definitely her story. Have a happy wednesday morning, Kirsten. Take care and God bless you. Greetings from Colombia to you as well.

[@JennNofficial]

I was emotional during Reba’s story too as one of her ancestors was a slave owner

[@staceycarv]

I discovered that Clyde Tombaugh is my 6x cousin. He discovered Pluto!

[@wanderingheidi]

My most shocking find was learning that my great, great grandfather hung himself when he was 40 in 1882, leaving behind his widow and four children under the age of 11, including my great grandfather, Simeon. Even more sad, in 1921, Simeon's wife was killed in a train-car crash, along with 3 other women. We knew about that, but we didn't know who Simeon's parents were until a census was released online (around 2002?), and we found his family. Once I found the father's name, I went to the history library. The newspaper articles I found on microfiche gave explicit details about the hanging. It was the same with the train-car crash article my mom saved about her grandmother. Lots of gore.

[@SkittyGirl300]

There are similar stories on the show called Finding Your Roots and it's very thorough on helping celebrities looking through their family tree.

[@SarahK-ib4vq]

After my grandfather died I learned that his father left him and his two older brothers for dead. My great grandmother died not long after my grandfather was born then not long after my great grandfather literally boarded up the house so the kids couldn't get out and walked away. Luckily one of my grandfather's older half sisters came to check on them before anything awful could happen and rescued them. She ended up raising my grandfather as her own but the older boys were sent to other family members and my great grandfather wasn't heard from again. My great grandmother was either his second or third wife depending on which record you go with and was much MUCH older than her.

[@jasp3rjeep13]

Cox: he's the reason that England is here. Because he conquered it from France? Me while facepalming: NO!! HE WAS FRENCH! HE CONQUERED IT FROM THE ANGLO-SAXONS!! WILLIAM THE CONQERER WAS THE DUKE OF NORMANDY BEFORE HE BECAME KING OF ENGLAND. NORMANDY WAS A FRENCH REGION AT THE TIME!

[@brianthomas2434]

He took an army from Normandy (in France) to cross the Channel to conquer England. Changing the government and importantly the English language. Where was Ms, Cox incorrect? Or do you just like slapping your own face? Also, while he was a Francophone, he had Scandinavian ancestry.

[@robertlevine2827]

I think she meant that he came from France to conquer it--she just left out some words and effed up her sentence structure.

[@kikidevine694]

It was a Norse region of France

[@cthulucoon]

Guillaume Le Conquérant, for us, French people. Conquered England in 1066 and lead to the creation of Middle English

[@robertlevine2827]

@@cthulucoon And before that, he was Guillaume Le Batard.

[@andersonfamily]

One of my favorite eps of this show is Kim Cattrall. Her granddad abandoned his wife and children so much more. Don't want to spoil a must watch

[@nanasewdear]

That was a very good episode! Her poor mother.

[@sauvignonblanc0]

I recall that episode and it was so good. She has a whole group of relatives in Australia whom she doesn't want to meet. I admire her for that-she didn't want to open a closed wardrobe door.

[@shez5964]

I was so surprised it wasn't on here. Deserves number one spot imo and definetely a must watch.

[@anitachiquita70]

Levar Burton recently found out his great grandfather was a white soldier in the Confederate army.

[@Uncle_Smidge]

I dare say his incredible career uplifting little black boys and girls for decades is the very best way to spite that ancestor. 🤗

[@brianthomas2434]

​@Uncle_Smidge small correction? Uplifting ALL children. It's not the same as saying "All lives matter. " Don't be offended.

[@Kenzalina_]

@@Uncle_SmidgeI loved Reading Rainbow!

[@madrobert0944]

Tbf they also said 100% of all black Americans who have done DNA testing have white ancestry and most likely being slave owners

[@CherryBlossom3x3]

​@@brianthomas2434jfc, stop.

[@shannonneese952]

Gwyneth Paltrow's father's father had a dark story involving the death of a sibling and his mother's post partum depression

[@jenniferscholl9770]

My 3x great-grandfather disappeared without a trace. He was leaving to head out to the west coast and was supposed to bring his family out when he’d been established. He started off writing letters to his family, then suddenly the letters stopped, or so the family story goes. No one ever found out what happened to him.

[@mfinchina__117]

The Lisa Kudrow one is a must-watch because of discovery they made at the end. I don't want to spoil it, but do yourself a favor and watch the episode if you can.

[@laura_saurusrex]

It's been recommended to me a few times but I haven't watched, but I will now! Thanks 😊

[@HariOmRadhaKrishna]

The Warwick Davis episode should have been in the top 5, but no spoilers. Boy George was good, & Olivia Colman's had some ancestry twists.

[@lornocford6482]

Josh Widacomb's was good.

[@jomc6734]

Re Courtney Cox - it's no big deal to trace your lineage back to William the Conqueror. There are literally 1,000s of people that can - and 1,000s is a very low estimate. Valerie Bertinelli found this same thing out when she was on, although I think the may have only mentioned Edward I to her.

[@hensonlaura]

I laughed my a** off at the Brook Shields episode. She thought she was so special to be descended from Charlemagne; millions of us are, darling. When I traced my genealogy what I learned most poignantly was that none of that ancient history makes a damned bit of difference to who we are today. The last 100 years can be very impactful. 200 years, let alone 1500... shut up. You aren't special. We're all descended from murderers, whores & heroes. The only people there records are of those with money and property or the outlaws; the unnamed & unknown are legion. We have one chance to make our own lives exceptional. Don't steal status from another make your own, if it's important to you.

[@SkittyGirl300]

This show made me intrigued to go through my family tree. my dad's side is very easy. But my mom's paternal family is a complete mystery. I still can't get any records about him.

[@christigmc]

I’ve heard both great and horrifying things about my ancestors. Everything from wealth and education to drug use. At the end of the day it’s informative but nothing I can do about it. Neither side affects me personally.

[@creative2716]

Cold!

[@wendychiles4057]

I love this show - the American and the UK versions.

[@TheKrispyfort]

Australia 🇦🇺 has a version, too

[@lunaholiday8585]

I’m related to Courtney Cox! (Along with millions of others also descended from William the Conqueror.)

[@cindytucker3065]

Re: the one concerning Lisa Kudrow. There is an excellent movie titled 'Come and See'. It's often listed as a movie you only watch once. There is an excellent write up in Wikipedia about it. It can be found on KZbin. I highly recommend it but have the tissues close by...

[@donnaleach8119]

@cindytucker3065: it’s a hard one to watch for sure! I feel so thankful that I never had to go through such a thing during my lifetime.

[@hensonlaura]

Thank you for that. I know it's painful watching histories with so much pain & destruction, but I feel that if people had to endure it the least I could do is witness & remember.

[@jaxonjaxoff3291]

Just thinking of Ben Affleck trying to hide it.

[@theorderofthebees7308]

He was so raggedy for that -mind then for him and Jennifer zLopez to get married on a former plantation . Just gross.

[@GeorgiaKouri]

I'm confused what did he hide?

[@jaxonjaxoff3291]

@@GeorgiaKouri he was descended from slave owners

[@theorderofthebees7308]

@@GeorgiaKouri he asked PBS to not air the portion of the broadcast in which it’s revealed that his ancestor owned enslaved people .

[@amkdub]

@@GeorgiaKouri he hid that his ancestors were slave owners

[@nicolelylewis]

I love this show!! I saw Jesse Tyler Ferguson's not too long ago and it was crazy!

[@theorderofthebees7308]

Spike Lee family had a shocking revelation his ancestor who was enslaved was forcibly working to create pistols for the confederacy- when Sherman army came through -of February of 1865 . To be forced to make guns that are being used to keep you enslaved is horrible-

[@supergirl0526]

The Rashida Jones episode was one of the darkest

[@lauriebriggs9705]

It was very moving. Her statement that the fact that she was born was just a miracle because both sides of her parentage were subjected to mass killings.

[@chrismazz75]

They couldn’t find anything interesting in Courtney’s recent heritage so they told the story about someone that every single person with British ancestry in the world today is descended from.

[@macgyversmacbook1861]

Exactly what I was thinking! I was thinking “join the club, half of Europe with French/English roots is already here”

[@Roz-y2d]

Not really. That’s very simplistic.

[@hensonlaura]

So true!

[@scottperry7164]

That's so funny, I didn't even think about that, I'm American.

[@TheMariemarie16]

Yeah, I looked it up and 5 million living people are descended from William the Conquerer. Lol

[@susanpaul2113]

Berkeley is pronounced Barkley in England

[@TheNutmegStitcher]

Legacy. What you choose may change your family for generations. So grateful to my father-in-law whose faith and steadfastness continues to shape his children, many grandchildren, and greats. RIP. We are watching the wonderful legacy lived out by the loving family culture. For me and my mother-in-law, it broke family cycles of alcoholism, abuse, and abandonment. Our children are thriving. Fathers, you matter. So much.

[@maxmetodiev641]

When i saw jesse Tyler Ferguson and family i thought it was modern family

[@TorieHopeRocks]

My maternal grandfather was adopted, lived his whole life thinking he had a twin sister only for me to find out through ancestry & 23andMe that she wasn’t his twin.

[@YuBeace]

The furthest back I’ve gotten is my ancestors were likely English merchants who moved to Gent during the Dutch Golden Age. Other than that, glassblowers and butchers, mostly. No stand-out drama either. I do know my granddad was a truck driving soldier during the Indonesian Revolution, and that he had absolutely no drivers liscense. 👀

[@Insanity_awaits]

Hearing these individuals family history, just makes my heart heavy alongside them 🥺 all this heartache and pain is too much for my fragile heart. I just want to live a pleasant life with my children as best as we can. It just seems so hard and out of reach.

[@TheKrispyfort]

Everyone with English blood is descended from William the Conqueror 😆

[@gwae48]

true. And everyone on the European mainland from CHARLEMAGNE !!!!!! True !!!!!

[@ashleya8532]

I love this series. I've watched a good deal of them (need to catch up on some episodes, though). And I remember watching some of your picks and crying right along with them because it was just so sad and crazy, the things people had to go through!

[@Sun-resa]

My mother has been investigating our genealogy since the 1960s, and she found we're related to Bonnie Parker. As in "Bonnie and Clyde." But we're also related to Anne Morrow, who was married to Charles Lindbergh.

[@GlennTheSadMarinersFan]

My Dad's father died in WWII the day he was born.. grandma remarried. I should find a way to look them up. I don't know anyone with my last name but him.

[@Muffy-b1g]

How very sad. So many children lost fathers in WW II.

[@julieplester1624]

This is so interesting

[@webb2kmo]

The darkest thing I found was my wife's 32 year old grandfather married and 18 year old girl. Her uncle Sigurd was born five months later.

[@BeLoud13]

I just swooned over the old-style card catalogs in the very first scene! *sigh*

[@ShannonStevens-gl7le]

Although these were horrid, you missed Kim cattrell, I expected her to be #1

[@justso4509]

Absolutely. Kim Cattrall's grandfather made me so angry. Heartless, selfish man.

[@davidpumpkinsjr.5108]

Warwick Davis discovered to some amusement that his great grandfather was a bigamist.

[@mepucket3029]

Steve Buscemi is an amazing human being .

[@f.n.246]

The 2 most upsetting would be regina king and kudrow just knowing that if you had been alive at the time you too would be butchered. That would feel like a horrific reminder. The others I wouldn't get that upset to be honest because of the generational distance, like if i found out my great, great, great grandfather was a nazi, it would be a shock but i wouldn't feel connected to his ignorance and sadism in any way.

[@kitsunelee007]

Amazing how for so many of us the pain of our past never goes away, for better or worse we carry the pain of the past.

[@NellieKAdaba]

Right

[@palexa188]

I used to love watching this show! It was what really made me be interested in Genealogy and it led me to search my own ancestry! The most shocking things I found was that my father's side of the family can be traced to two individuals in particular: one was the uncle of a king of my country (so nobility) and the other was a French man that helped the first king of our country conquer our capital city. The latter was responsible for the survival of hundreds of people and the king personally awarded him with land and a last name (back when people only had one name unless you were nobility...the last name is actually the thing he used to protect the people). From my mother's side of the family, I found that we were descended from Jews which I find ironic because both my great-grandparents and grandparents are devout catholics 😅 and the most shocking this is we have some ancestor from Japan of all places! Though maybe it's not shocking if we think about it because my country did trade with the Japanese for centuries so it's possible that one ended up in our family...I'm not even going to contemplate on how because that would be a headache in and of itself 😅

[@bethgoldman2560]

I’m not surprised that devout Catholics have Jewish ancestry. I’m descended from Italian Conversos. Many Spanish/Portuguese/ Italians can have Jewish ancestry because of the Inquisition

[@karenritter2574]

I'm still searching thru all my heritage

[@sharonanne1671]

I really enjoy the show!

[@supergirl0526]

I've had lots of shocking things in doing my family tree, but nothing "dark". Found my dad's biological father, discovered my Scottish grandfather's biological family (he was adopted), and found out my Lithuanian grandfather was in the resistance against the Russians.

[@callumfriel6092]

EXACTLY THE CONTENT I WANT!!! TLDR British daytime tv. Not sarcasm. Thank you!

[@mrouth5691]

Oh you should see Jane Seymour, and Annie Lennox’s stories … so sad

[@MultiMolly21]

I didn't learn until I was fifty the man who started the Civil War of the US was my great grandfather. Milledge L Bonham signed the first secessionist papers that set it all off. Not surprisingly my mother didn't go around bragging about it.

[@martinconnors5195]

Like Christina Applegate, I didn't know much about my Paternal Grandparents either. The only Grandparents I knew properly, were my Maternal grandparents

[@cotybowman8825]

I love this stuff, but it scares me a little. Some of my family moved to America from Braunau am Inn, Austria. A bad dude with the name of Schicklegruber was from there also. His dad changed the family name to Hitler. It wasn't a huge town and I stopped looking into the family tree when I saw that town.

[@charliejoson9145]

What does it mean when Kirsten said, about Courtney Cox's ancestor, "26 times grandfather"?

[@barbarossarotbart]

He is her great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grat great great great great grat great great great great grandfather. 27 generations in the past.

[@charliejoson9145]

​@@barbarossarotbart- thank you for the explanation. I appreciate it :)

[@maryfrump7937]

He is mine too. Had a heck of a time finding the grandparents to get there, but I did it! Census and very old documents are the keys

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@maryfrump7937 You can assume that some one living in Europe 27 generationn ago is the ancestor of many if not even all Europeans. The problem is to prove it, because often records only allow to trace your ancestry back for three maybe four centuries. In some regions not even that far back.

[@DeborahIsenhart]

It means you have a VERY LONG DOCUMENTED history

[@MaineOffGrid.]

Fascinating stuff. I have traced my lineage back to France and England as well as Native American tribes. I wish I had the money to go to Europe to trace it back further.

[@jegsthewegs]

Many people find dark secrets about themselves when they become ill with a inheritable disease. That's why it's ABSOLUTELY essential to know who BOTH parents are.

[@jenthulin2363]

Boy George's family history is dark and sad.

[@NellieKAdaba]

I love Boy George.

[@waittillfamewtf2385]

Edge of Seventeen 🕊

[@chimi1022]

Found out my maternal grandfathers mothers side goes back to a male ancestor hung during the Salem Witch Trials, back to a passenger on the Mayflower and even further back to English monarchs.

[@schweenieboy]

5:40 Just Because Her Family Went Through This Doesn't Mean She Has To Go Through This.

[@erictaylor5462]

Being a direct descendant of any given person (Such as King William) is not actually all that remarkable. Consider, for every generation you go back, the number of grandparents you have is doubled. You have two parents, a mother and a father. Your mother has two parents and your father has 2 parents, meaning you have 4 grandparents, your 4 grandparents each have their parents so you 8 great grandparents. So every generation you go back the number of your grand parents doubles. In theory at least. In practice, at the 30th generation (which takes us back to around 1274) we find that the number of grandparents you have in theory is over 2 Billion. The Earth's population in 1274 was 350 million to 400 million people. This means that nearly everyone in a given region is a direct ancestor of everyone alive in 1274. And so just about everyone can trace their ancestry to any notable person alive at that time. Nearly every single person in the world who has at least some English heritage is a direct descendant of William. It's kind of funny when you think about it. The Bible goes to great lengths to show that Jesus was a direct descendant of King David. But David lived 885 years before Jesus, "proving" that Jesus was entitled to the Israeli thrown. The same could be said of everyone in Israel. Hate to point it out, but in this respect Jesus wasn't special. This doesn't mean he wasn't special for other reasons, but he had no more right to be King than Brian had.

[@NiKiMa023]

But but, who has a better story? 🙄

[@korydrew]

As much as I want to share mine. It's a difficult task. I discovered some shocking details on my paternal line that needs to be kept private. It is way too much to go into detail over and people I am related to need to be kept secret for our safety as a family. Only detail I can share is my 24th great grandfather was king of Scotland. That should explain why.

[@jennifer_m.8613]

What they didnt show was that Christina Applegate's grandmother bought a cemetery plot for Robert - the son she couldn't raise, but never stopped loving ❤️

[@Skywalkerog_]

Regina king thinking people are going through the same thing her uncle went through is delusional and the problem with people thinking they have it hard like the ones before them

[@amylou22snowhite]

One of my ancestors was an accused witch at Salem.

[@robertab7341]

Edward II didn't abdicate, he was deposed. Same result but 'abdicate' suggests he wanted to step down

[@hunterjanellwinchester172]

I guess I'm related to Courtney Cox. Because my Dad found out that on my Mom's side we're also related to William the Conqueror.😮

[@DelicateInferno]

I'm descended from the Tudors of England.

[@amyw6808]

Berkeley is pronounced Bark-ley 🙄 In the UK, our version of this show is Who Do You Think You Are? Bryan Blessed’s one brings me to tears because of his own emotions.

[@cdeanneeckles]

I love Who do you think you are. Family History

[@fionafayker6992]

My find was that my maternal grandfather lied that he and his family were Norwegian Jews. I found out that his family were Christian and his grandfather was a famous minister in Denmark! My mother never knew.

[@NiKiMa023]

Interesting. Don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone lying about being Jewish. Usually it’s the other way around, for rEaSoNs

[@fionafayker6992]

We found he had a record of lying. And he didn't do his national service in Denmark, so not a pleasant man as he walked out on my my mum when she was 4.

[@jaymeseifert7432]

I come from William the conqueror too!

[@Browny241422]

The last actress..... Imagine the lives of innocent children in ghaza. They too will be sobbing on how their father or relatives lives were sadly distroyed.

[@NadiaGirl1]

For Jason Sudeski

[@bobvalenz4938]

So where are the Mexican actors O i forgot Mexican roots is not popalar at the moment 😂 Im a mexicano

[@carlfromtheoc1788]

Found out via DNA testing that I am 8.9% Indigenous American - from a location that resulted in many, many generations of people making tortillas from scratch by hand - which I was not too surprised by. That and 5% North African/near Middle Eastern.

[@D4L_457]

William the conquer is my 25x ancestors to. My 25x grandfather and him was cousin they conquered England together

[@higgme1ster]

Lisa Kudrow's story because it connects to 6 Million other murders. The film, "Everything Is Illuminated" with Elijah Wood is gut rippingly poignant about the same sort of event.

[@Mandy-dy7nj]

Rather oddly, the British pronounce Berkeley as Barkley.

[@karenhall6216]

Nothing odd about it. It's how it's pronounced in Australia and other places too.

[@nillyk5671]

Now that I think about it... who do you think you are doesn't do dna tests. These people could be learning stories of people who are not even really related to them, crying over people who are not really their ancestors. Paper trails do not always tell you the truth, only dna does. Non paternity events are common throughout generations.

[@bolden84321]

my husband lees woolleys great grandfather reginald prothero 1849-1927 married a much younger woman went through a divorce maternal side during world war one buried in highgate cementry

[@emmapark8530]

I think the jerry Springfield was a very sad story for the u.s version

[@alexandraphelps4020]

Regina King is a brilliant filmmaker, and I hope she can make her family’s story into an excellent film.