The Most Jaw-Dropping Family Scandals Discovered on Finding Your Roots

The Most Jaw-Dropping Family Scandals Discovered on Finding Your Roots | Ancestry®

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6 ай бұрын

Ask and you shall receive! Ahead of season 10’s premiere on January 2nd, experience some of the most surprising family secrets Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. has uncovered over the past nine seasons of Finding Your Roots. visitancestry.com/3TwjsXA
For more celebrity family discoveries here, click here: visitancestry.com/3KcjQ8B.
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Пікірлер: 55

@mermaidmoon2254 6 ай бұрын

My great-grandmother was one of the first female lawyers in Milan. She left her first husband right after my grandmother was born in a very dramatic way. The early 20th century was a time when that wasn't common at all, it was a true scandal at the time. And nobody dared discussing it ever in our family, so I wish I could've asked her the reason. I'm so curious about why...

@bettersecret1499 6 ай бұрын

Mine did the same but in the south of Italy and she never talked about him ever again. But we know why .. the guy was a violent a-hole who then took another woman in illegally since you couldn't divorce and destroyed her life instead of my nonna who escaped from him as the strong woman she was

@love2sing20101 4 ай бұрын

I think stories of our ancestors are so much more interesting than many of our lives nowadays. The stakes were so much higher with everything.

@Olive_O_Sudden 6 ай бұрын

A couple of years ago I saw my great-grandmother Rebecca's birth certificate for the first time and was surprised to see that the name listed was "Eva Becky". Nobody in my family ever called her either Eva or Becky.

@ericoberlies7537 5 ай бұрын

There are conflicting accounts of my Aunt Ivy’s real first name. I’ve heard Ivy, Iva, and Ivory. She was my favorite relative; died relatively young (early 50s) about 50 years ago. My daughter bears Ivy as one of her middle names.

@gretchenortner 3 ай бұрын

My grandmother always told her children her first name was Margaret and her middle name was Mary. No one thought anything of it until someone looked at her birth certificate and it said her name was Margaret Ione (Ione being her mother's name). I love it because my middle name is also Ione (my mom deciding to name me after my great grandmother, not knowing that her mother's middle name *is actually Ione*). We'll never know why my grandmother insisted her middle name was Mary, she is in the late stages of Alzheimer's now and we only found out her real middle name recently.

@Olive_O_Sudden 3 ай бұрын

@@gretchenortner Ione is a beautiful name.

@gretchenortner 3 ай бұрын

@@Olive_O_Sudden thank you, i agree!

@1992marigold Ай бұрын

My great grandfather decided at some point to change his middle name. He was named Oliver Ephraim at birth. His father's brother was named Ephraim. He changed his middle named to Eugene. I'd love to know why. The same with my grandmother's sister. Her birth name was Gineveria and she changed it to Geneva.

@AncestryUS 6 ай бұрын

Has learning a family secret made you more compassionate towards an ancestor?

@denisevincent4050 6 ай бұрын

Alice Martin 1616-1648, first woman executed in Plymouth Colony, for the murder of her four year old daughter from her first marriage. At first, there was horror, but later I was inclined to blame her husband, Richard Bishop. Finally I read Donna A. Watkins' book, "Diverse Gashes", and I'm inclined to think that Alice snapped after being triggered by a snide teenaged neighbor girl. I'm also wondering if Alice was dealing with postpartum depression following the birth of child, perhaps even James Bishop (for whom I have a ton of documentation and several DNA matches of varying confidence to descendants of Richard Bishop). I have zero compassion for the Putnams of Salem Village, but more compassion than ever for Mercy Lewis, the younger sister of my ancestor, Priscilla Lewis. I suspect that the compassion of family historians says more about them than about whoever they might be researching.

@tracya6702 6 ай бұрын

oh yes! i did find out that a very small side business of mine (soapmaking) was my 5x great grandfather's profession! a journeyman soapmaker! his children had a lot of illegitimate children, and i had 2 or 3 sent away as convicts to van diemen's and australia. I was sad for them and hope they were happy while they were alive (one died a horrible death). I love your show and the stories you bring to people. we are all human, we are all connected and we all have a story!

@keithtorgersen9664 6 ай бұрын

I have a living relative who is rumored to have served in the CIA, but we don’t talk about that.

@coppertopv365 5 ай бұрын

My mom is my 5th cousin on my dads side. I found my dad in my early 30s and so i did uncover not only a scandal that my mom was 19 & my dad was 16 when i was conceived. But two years ago i found out i have a half aunt, because my grandfather who i never thought would cheat on my grandmother did cheat and he knew he had another kid, but he was never in no part of my half aunts life. When hunting family secrets.. be ready to accept most anything ..

@darkangel_1978 6 ай бұрын

I love John Waters. I'm from the same town and state as him, and we love him.

@dianethulin1700 6 ай бұрын

I am too, sort of. He lives in my neighborhood now and I see him sometimes

@randyjames4713 6 ай бұрын

Same town and state, that is rare. Usually it's same town, different state !

@darkangel_1978 6 ай бұрын

@@randyjames4713 you wouldn't believe how many Baltimoreans are out there.

@bellamaz1972 5 ай бұрын

I lived in Bmore; I remember JW “sightings”, and comparing with other peoples sightings. He just goes around and does what he wants unpretentiously, I miss living in the same city as he :)

@dianethulin1700 5 ай бұрын

@@bellamaz1972 True. I’ve seen him getting the paper in his bathrobe, buying cigarettes at the corner market and waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk. Unpretentious 💯

@cynthiaann4465 6 ай бұрын

Love that show!!!!

@pamelacurts6765 6 ай бұрын

When are they going to start doing this for regular people?

@stereomois 6 ай бұрын

They do a different series that involves regular people, not sure if it's online.

@joelouis-arena4061 6 ай бұрын

It’s on the other tube. The iTube

@haroldconover5221 5 ай бұрын

You have the greatest show . I wish i could afford to pay you to do my ancestry.

@johnchandler1687 5 ай бұрын

My greatgrandad, Gillis Fewell, was in the local saloon when he heard screams for help. Five European immigrants who couldn't speak English had been picking strawberries from the storekeeper's garden. When he tried to make them pay they pulled knives and cut him badly. Greatgrandad, who was county champion shot and always carried his rifle, shot and killed all 5. One of the bystanders said, "You missed that last one when he ran around the corner." He replied," No, I got him right where his suspenders crossed." Sure enough the bullet hit dead center where they crossed. When the sheriff came into the saloon to question him he told him that some stranger he'd never seen before came in, asked to borrow his rifle. Said they'd heard 5 shots, then the stranger returned the rifle and left. All the men present swore that was what happened and the sheriff couldn't do a thing. Still, I played with that old Winchester 1873 44/40 as a kid and it had 5 notches whittled in yhe top if it's stock.😊

@byusaranicole 5 ай бұрын

Where can I watch full episodes??

@AFloridaSon 6 ай бұрын

I'm always surprised when people know so little about their parents and grandparents, unless they were adopted.

@darilynkrupp6309 6 ай бұрын

Many families either won't talk about something that happens that they consider wrong or too personal. Or they see it as bragging or just not that big a deal if it's something good, and It just keeps going down the generations.

@sharontabor7718 6 ай бұрын

My family doesn't/ didn't talk about the bad things. They wanted to shelter the kids. Many secrets have gone to their graves.

@tombstonetea 6 ай бұрын

depends on where you are from... my great grandmother whom i was named after and knew TECHNICALLY didnt have a birth certificate. Mississippi didnt issue certificates until 1905ish. She STILL was picking cotton as a child.

@stereomois 6 ай бұрын

Grandfather died young and he had a previous family of which he seldom talked about so I've been slowly connecting dots some 90 years later.

@lauramaniscalco7742 6 ай бұрын

I am italian and my parents very often used to speak about their parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents. They even wrote their biographies, with lot of information on they relatives, and they sent them to the Archivio di Diari at Pieve di Santo Stefano were memories of lot of people are kept and ready for everyone to read. I think secrecy about the past is more common in American families.

@mmeyerdc 6 ай бұрын

My 2X great grand aunt Eliza married at least four times in the 19th century and had one child. The man who fathered the child lived next door and had a wife and five kids, and my aunt was married to one of her husbands at the time who divorced her and cited the pregnancy as grounds. I found this all out while researching family history.

@philippschwartzerdt3431 2 күн бұрын

And what have we learned? Your ancestors share your DNA, but they don’t share your future and what you make out of it! Adding: And as so many people like to have it. The same way, nobody should hold your ancestry against you, the one way or the other.

@user-hn4oi7yz1h 3 ай бұрын

It may sound strange, the scandals do show a determination and strength of will.

@baron7755 5 ай бұрын

0:45 what scandal?

@jayfire2610 5 ай бұрын

Who is that dude at 0:47 ? Could be a mix up in my brain but his voice sounds hella familiar

@zetectic7968 4 ай бұрын

Richard Kind, actor.

@DonnaBarrHerself 5 ай бұрын

My mother's brother's first wife's first cousin was Leni Riefenstahl 😳

@nicholaspaularnold 5 ай бұрын

I’m related to John Dillinger on my dad’s side and Madonna on my mom’s side

@girl1213 4 ай бұрын

Not really a scandal but...I know my paternal grandma's family come to Wisconsin because they were running from a murderer. From the story, they believed he believed they knew something about a murder he convicted, so they took the family and ran, and settled in the Cheese State. I guess they were successful since there haven't been any suspicious deaths since.