What’s the biggest skeleton in the closet you’ve discovered?

readysetgo · 27-02-2021 12:46pm

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Adopted person here. Both my birth parents are dead but I still can’t get my file fromEngland ( they say they don’t have it ) and TUSLA hiding behind GDPR.
Despite officialdom, I found both my birth parents families .It transpires that I have a half sister , 3 weeks older than I am ! She was also placed for adoption.
My birth father’s family thought he died childless and we’re delighted when my sister found them . They were gobsmacked a few months after when I popped up .

Don't get me started on Tusla. I identified grandparents through DNA sites on behalf of one of parents who was adopted.
My Grandmother died quite a number of years ago, so gave all details to TUSLA. Her name didnt match their records so couldn't release any documents. A fake name and dates of birth were used in birth hospital and different again on adoption papers, the whole process aided by solicitors and nuns. There is no record of anyone ever existing with the names and dates of births in Ireland and TUSLA wont release files as they say the person might be from another jurisdiction!

Sorry for tangenting on a rant!!
Skeleton was that my Grandfather who adopted the child was the actual father.

Green Mile · 27-02-2021 5:06pm

I discovered I’m related to The “Stag of the Naul”
A barrister born around 1752, Leonard McNally converted from Catholic to Protestant and was an informer for the British. Tommy Monaghan wrote a play about him in 1998 called Viva La, a story of corruption among informers who ruined the United Irishmen’s plans to enlist French help.

Would be great to hear if anyone in this forum has a link to McNally’s North Dublin.

pinkypinky · 28-02-2021 1:03am

Impressive to discover a connection to anyone in the 18th century. Most people cannot get easily get past the famine. How did you discover?

Green Mile · 28-02-2021 11:07am

pinkypinky wrote: »

Impressive to discover a connection to anyone in the 18th century. Most people cannot get easily get past the famine. How did you discover?

I met with my Dads second cousin, she had hired a professional genealogist a few years ago, it was great to get such information.

spurious · 28-02-2021 11:25pm

Reati wrote: »

Two. A great great grandfather died young about 35 of strangulation. No idea if it was an accident or murdered. Anyone got ideas where to look for information on things like that?

If it was as the result of a crime it probably would have made the papers if it was in Ireland. I have subs to both Irish and British newspaper archives if you want to PM a name and date.

Mick Tator · 01-03-2021 11:37am

Hermy wrote: »

Mick,

I don't know where to start with this post. It's by times contradictory, factually incorrect and completely at odds with the lived experiences of many of us whose lives have been directly affected by adoption..

Thanks for the detailed response. It would not be sensible for a non-adoptee to debate the topic with an adoptee. No offense was intended, if it was taken I apologise.

Hermy · 01-03-2021 11:54am

No offence taken Mick.

And for all my banging on about lived experience that only counts for so much and an outside perspective is always welcome lest one end up in a bubble.

Ash.J.Williams · 01-03-2021 11:57am

8valve wrote: »

My great grandfather was the illegitimate child of the local British landlord, who seemingly 'had his way' with the servant girls in his house on a regular basis. He was raised by a local family whose surname he was given.

I had a granduncle who emigrated to New York in the 1920s, reportedly became a part of the Irish organised crime mob there, and met his end badly, at the hands of the rival Italian mafia. To hide the shame of his criminality, it was stated that he died from 'the drink'.

isnt the drink a mafia term for forced drowning?

Reati · 01-03-2021 12:27pm

spurious wrote: »

If it was as the result of a crime it probably would have made the papers if it was in Ireland. I have subs to both Irish and British newspaper archives if you want to PM a name and date.

Will do.

ticklebelly7 · 01-03-2021 1:44pm

Discovered through the newspaper archives that my great grandfather was a master criminal.

He had a a couple of businesses including a fairly posh grocery store in Dublin where he was caught passing off inferior American ham as the Sacred Ham of Ireland. This was apparently a very serious offence as the magistrate fined him £10 which was a hefty fine for 1896.

In his other business, a country pub and hotel, he was caught by the polis for having 'illegal pints' Contrary to what might be expected, his pints were 30% and 50% bigger than the legal pint. He was only fined a couple of quid for that one. Perhaps the magistrate saw that as more of a public service than an outright crime.

8valve · 01-03-2021 9:17pm

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

isnt the drink a mafia term for forced drowning?

Didn't know that!

Don't know if he was drowned.

All I could get from elderly relatives (all now long deceased, sadly) was that he died 'badly', which could mean anything...shot, stabbed, tortured, and left dead on the street, as an example to others....

Cragaun · 02-03-2021 1:23am

I have the worst crime in rural Ireland. A great grandfather drank the farm. I mention it to ask for advice. The story we have is that he had been close to ordination as a Jesuit.
Does anyone know how to find out more on that? Time is the 1890s

L1011 · 02-03-2021 10:50am

His entry in to seminary may have been reported in the local papers, as may any visits home when partially trained - this would depend on the area, the local paper and how little other news there was!

tabbey · 02-03-2021 1:02pm

Cragaun wrote: »

he had been close to ordination as a Jesuit.
Does anyone know how to find out more on that? Time is the 1890s

The Jesuit archivist in lower lesson street is very helpful

Mick Tator · 03-03-2021 9:26am

L1011 wrote: »

His entry in to seminary may have been reported in the local papers, as may any visits home when partially trained - this would depend on the area, the local paper and how little other news there was!

The Irish Jesuit order has a large archive in Leeson St Dublin. They were helpful when I was researching one.

baldbear · 16-03-2021 3:30pm

Someone close to me was contacted by a 1st cousin she never knew existed. This lady was adopted & her mother told no one. (Or maybe she did) She knew her birth mother's name and that her father bolted when her mother was pregnant.

She wanted to locate her mother and siblings but the person never replied or passed on any of the information.

Hermy · 16-03-2021 5:27pm

baldbear wrote: »

...the person never replied or passed on any of the information.

That's a real shame.

It's such a small thing to do to pass on any useful genealogical information to someone making inquiries but for an adoptee it can mean the world.

p15574 · 16-03-2021 6:39pm

I agree, such a shame. It's happened me twice recently. Once in relatively close extended family, but we contacted the relevant family members first before responding, the other more distant where myself and the adoptee did a bit of detective work to figure out who her mother was. Such a shame adoptees at present have no right to their own birth cert. In the latter case, while she'd been searching for years, we figured it out within a couple of days of the DNA match, to find out her mother had died only 6 months ago.

I figure that it's justified because
a) it's only right, and
b) they'll eventually find the person (hopefully, anyway). For example, in the first case above, while we were discussing with the family, the person concerned made contact with other DNA matches who may not have been as delicate.

I actually had a third contact the day after the second one but it's a very low % match so I wasn't able to be of much help.

baldbear · 18-03-2021 12:26am

Hermy wrote: »

That's a real shame.

It's such a small thing to do to pass on any useful genealogical information to someone making inquiries but for an adoptee it can mean the world.

Yeah.. i told the person that they should reply or contact their cousin to let them know as this will come out someday with other people joining genealogy sites. I've asked again did they say anything & they keep saying they don't know what to say.

It's sad making connections with dead family members and ignoring the living.

dom101 · 18-03-2021 12:45am

I did uncover a 3 x great grandfather who was according to several prison records "the cleverest and most notorious pickpocket in the city of Cork" in the 1860's.

He died in Cork jail in January 1868 aged 28. His final arrested was for stealing a 2 gallon barrel of whiskey off a cart that was heading from Mr Murphy's brewery to a Mrs Smith at Fermoy. He was turned in by my 3 x great grandmother who clearly had enough of his antics. They had only 1 son, my 2 great granddad.

While he may well have been the most notorious pickpocket in Cork, I fail to see how he was the cleverest given the number of arrests he had and that he served time in prisons in Mountjoy, Spike Island and Cork Jail.

I wasn't sure for quiet a while whether to believe that this could be my guy until I saw the name and address of his wife on one of the prison records which matched to the family home for the next 20 years of records.

The details in the records are fantastic but the shear volume of newspaper articles are priceless.

whatswhat · 21-03-2021 7:57pm

This isn't my "Skeleton" tale but it shocked me because it affects present day peoples lives and I'd bet it's not uncommon.
It is 4 years since I took a DNA test to help with tracing my ancestors and every month, more and more "relations" pop up.
It started initially with 255 possible relatives and now I'm close to 2000, the majority of which live in the USA.
I find most people are not remotely interested in finding the "connection" anyway and because I have no knowledge of ever having family there, it really is a needle in a haystack, so I don't pay much heed.
Early into this New Year though, I was contacted by a lady living in New York, a possible 3rd cousin and we have conversed quite a lot since then. I asked her what made her take the DNA test? she replied:
"I didn't apply personally, my brother gifted it to me and my two other sisters for Christmas just gone. Not only are we all close in age but we were very close as siblings too and all decided in 2020 to research our family tree. The DNA test came back that the youngest sister did not share the same biological father as her other three siblings, they were all shocked to the core at this new knowledge as none of them had a clue, believed the parents they all grew up with were the same. Our father passed away several years ago and our mother is in a care home suffering dementia, so we couldn't get any answers. The saddest thing is the younger sister has taken it so bad she has stopped talking to us and cut herself off from us"

I just thought to myself, how sad that a close family has been damaged by someones not so long ago "Skeleton"

Green Mile · 22-03-2021 12:13am

I have to say it’s interesting that the DNA kits are connecting adoptees to families.
My girlfriend is adopted and reluctant to contact Tusla for fear it will open up doors that’s shouldn’t be opened as she is aware her biological mother will be notified from any request she makes.

I told her about the DNA kits and the experiences people on boards have had.

She’s ordered a DNA kit there today. Would be interesting to see the results, possible 1st cousins or even siblings, who knows! She wants to know more from a distance, not to get involved in anything with anyone.

OU812 · 22-03-2021 12:00pm

Green Mile wrote: »

I have to say it’s interesting that the DNA kits are connecting adoptees to families.
My girlfriend is adopted and reluctant to contact Tusla for fear it will open up doors that’s shouldn’t be opened as she is aware her biological mother will be notified from any request she makes.

I told her about the DNA kits and the experiences people on boards have had.

She’s ordered a DNA kit there today. Would be interesting to see the results, possible 1st cousins or even siblings, who knows! She wants to know more from a distance, not to get involved in anything with anyone.

It’ll most likely be 3rd to 5th or more distant cousins.

However there’s also the possibility of closer and the issue with that is they’ll be alerted immediately also.

Friend of mine did one recently and discovered that his first cousins were actually half cousins and that meant her parent was only a half sibling in her family. Also others that she had expected to be 2nd and 3rd cousins that she knew and was in contact with were actually far more distant.

This means her grandmother has a skeleton in her closet and someone further up the line has one in theirs.

Makes me wonder why we concentrate on the paternal line (and why women change their names when married) when in actual fact the maternal line is the only one we can really almost 100% trust.

pinkypinky · 22-03-2021 12:37pm

OU812 wrote: »

Makes me wonder why we concentrate on the paternal line (and why women change their names when married) when in actual fact the maternal line is the only one we can really almost 100% trust.

Patriarchy...

As a woman, I've never understood those who are more interested in their patrilineal line. They're ALL my ancestors. I want to know about all of them. Some of them have my surname but that doesn't make them more special.

Hannibal_Smith · 22-03-2021 12:49pm

My mother's grandmother on her mother's side, who she called Lilly, isnt actually her biological grandmother. Her grandmother died and her grandad married another woman of the same name and they had two more children together. Not a skeleton per se I suppose but I was doing the family tree and discovered it through the civil records and she was surprised when I told her

Also her dad was conceived out of wedlock...his parents married in May and he was born in September. Its highly likely he was early of course and its all above board

, but her granny is down as a minor on the marriage cert which makes me think there was a bit of urgency to it :cool:

23-07-2021 10:26pm

I found out my mother had 2 sisters in the UK one of whom she only got in contact with recently.

She often said to me that she remembered her mother and aunt in the 60s in Birmingham with a dark coloured baby dropping the baby at a Catholic home, but she was young so wasn't sure. One sister is of jamaican heritage. The others car was blown up in Bosnia in some kind of mission, she was a constable.

I found out my gg grandfather died when an army plane on a training mission crashed into his travelling circus. And my gg grandmother was Jewish, who had a few petty sessions against her for 'shooting firearms defiantly in the air on front of police'.

There will be more!

pinkypinky · 24-07-2021 3:34pm

The circus incident was surely reported in the newspaper!

24-07-2021 9:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117656076#Comment_117656076

Sure was! 1911 if I remember correctly.

What’s the biggest skeleton in the closet you’ve discovered?

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