Every family has its secrets.
It's up to every new generation to unearth it all.
Don't we all want to know if we're related to famous people?
Or what if we have a familial stake in lands and businesses?
Also, this is a good way to NOT end up dating blood relatives.
The more you know, the less awkward later.
As much as there is a lot of trauma there could be a lot of cool facts to to discuss at parties.
Redditor ForthrightPedant wanted to hear some interesting family histories, so they asked:
"What is a historical fact about your family that you think is kinda neat?"
I don't have any family history.
Of course I've done no investigating.
Maybe I do.
I should look!
Super Talent
Excited Happy Hour GIF by Boomerang OfficialGiphy"Great-grandpa created the Flintstones. Dan Gordon. Drew lots of Hannah-Barbara cartoons, and directed the first three animated Superman films at the beginning of WW2 as well as several seasons of Popeye, Scooby Doo, Smurfs, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound."
downnoutsavant
Bad Voyage
"My grandfather disliked America and wanted to return to Ireland. He booked passage on the Titanic’s return voyage. If it wouldn’t have sunk, no of us would be here."
mrseddievedder
"My great-grandmother was a Titanic survivor. She was a steerage-class Lebanese immigrant in an arranged marriage. Her husband went down with the ship but she managed to make it to a lifeboat and made it to the Carpathia. Then she remarried in a Lebanese neighborhood in Virginia. Had it not been for the iceberg that struck and sank the Titanic My family lineage would be different and I wouldn't be here. My family's official toast is 'to the iceberg.'"
jaspersurfer
Forgotten
"My husband's grandfather was one of the 'forgotten soldiers' in Canada. He was a Canadian-born Chinese man who asked the Canadian government to fight for his right to vote and a passport. Even tho he was born in Canada in the 20’s since he was Chinese he was not considered Canadian."
H"e was dropped into the Burma jungle and was told he would likely never return. He was in the 10% that did return. He was given the right to vote, to a passport, and to University."
"His wife is still alive today and my son is named after him."
cowskeeper
Can you imagine?
"My great-grandmother had 13 kids, so she was pregnant for literally a decade. There’s two hundred of us now, all because of this one woman."
CoverlessSkink
"My great grandma had 14 kids. My grandma was the youngest. She died giving birth to my grandma. The oldest child who was like 22 years old raised my grandma. My great-grandfather remarried a woman who had 10 kids of her own. My grandma would tell me stories of them all living together. Can u imagine? 😦."
Content_Pool_1391
Long Ago
american wtf GIF by unimpressionismGiphy"The land my dad was raised on and my cousins still live on was deeded to the family by George Washington as compensation for service during the Revolution. There was a document with his signature on it at the courthouse until a fire destroyed the records a few decades ago."
mustbethedragon
So much land and fortune and HISTORY has been lost due to fire.
Thank God we keep more than paper records now.
Over the Moon
Michael Jackson Dancing GIFGiphy"My second cousin is David Scott who walked on the Moon and drove the moon buggy. My mom does. He was so busy during the time when I was young that he even said later in life that he wished she’d gotten to know more of his family."
Roadgoddess
The Union
"Great-great-great grandfather on my mom's side was working his field in the part of Virginia that split off and became a new state because they didn't want to secede from The Union. Union soldiers came along looking for conscripts and he was a young, able-bodied man so they told him to come with them. He informed them he was a Quaker and thus a pacifist. According to family lore, that discussion went on for a bit but he would not give in. So they shot him and left him there. Good thing he had a couple of kids well before that day."
SpottyNoonerism
Opportiunities
"My great-grandfather was offered a chance to invest in a new invention by a guy by the name of Alexander Graham Bell. He declined, saying at most there would be one telephone per town."
Carson4307
"That is apparently my family too."
"One uncle apparently built a version of a hot water heater and then sold the design to GE for a good sum back then."
"Another uncle was asked if he wanted to be in a photo during his military service. He said no so they raised the flag on Iwo Jima without him in it."
"No idea if any of these are true, at best they are enhanced truths, but for me, I really hope they are true."
Jormungand1342
Underground
"I have a relative who worked for the Underground Railroad and had a price on her head in the South."
dahlia6767
"My uncle was a carpenter. And was doing restoration work on old houses in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Many of those old, historical homes had underground railroad passageways and hidden walls. He got to see and restore many of them. He had photos of some of the work he was doing and I got to see those as a kid. Living in Southern Ohio, we have a lot of rich underground railroad history here."
AddictiveArtistry
Family Empire
blood discussion GIFGiphy"My great-grandfather was the town police chief in the 1920s. His brother was the Mayor. Their cousins ran the casino."
"My family was a smaller version of Boardwalk Empire."
nowhereman136
Wouldn't we all love a show based on our families?
Then that's even more neat family history.
Reddit user WeirdJawn asked:
"Older Redditors, what do young people get completely wrong about past decades?"
As a young person, I was fascinated with the idea my maternal Grandmother lived through the transition from horses to combustion engine vehicles, the inception of commercial air travel, the creation of the motion picture industry and the invention of television.
But I've lived through vinyl LPs and 45s, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and digital music players.
If I wanted to see a movie as a kid, I went to a theater—or drive-in—or waited for an often heavily edited version to air on TV. Then cable movie channels were introduced, followed by LP size video disc players, then Betamax and VHS, DVDs, HD and Blu-ray and now?
Digital downloads and streaming services—I haven't been to a theater in years.
GiphyTV
"Up until video rental stores in the early 80's, at school the next day every kid was talking about what was on TV the night before, as every single family was watching tv together every single night."
"With some exceptions, most people watched the same thing as their schoolmates or co-workers, just to be a part of the conversation."
~ Grimjack2
"There's something very isolating about modern media.
"You can be into a TV show, or YouTube series, and nobody else you know has heard of it."
"I'm a fan of aYouTube series—RedLetterMedia—that's pretty popular and very well regarded amongst its fans, and only one of my friends has heard about it.
~ SlashThingy
GiphyUnanswered Questions
"Probably just how often you had to accept that you couldn't find out the answer to something."
"If you had a question you could ask your family, maybe your friends, maybe your teachers, and your last chance was the check the library."
"But if the library didn't have the answer, then you just had to accept that you weren't going to get an answer (or you'd have to hope to come across that answer someday in the future)."
"Now you just ask Google and get 10 answers in just seconds."
~ john_jdm
GiphyOne & Done
"How on-time you had to be for your favorite shows because there was little to no chance you’d see that same episode again until they (hopefully) did re-runs during summer."
"I remember waiting anxiously for the nightly news to be over so I could watch my favorite TV shows."
"Commercial breaks were just mad rushes for the bathroom, or to the kitchen to get something quick to drink."
~ ladyeclectic79
"Once it was done, it was gone."
"The happy tears I cried when they finally released The Stand miniseries on DVD about a decade after airing."
~ Barrys_Fic
"I feel I was in the last generation of this, even though channels were much more prevalent and reruns of everything was the norm."
"I remember rushing off the bus with all my friends because we were absolutely SURE Goku was gonna defeat Frieza this episode. And it was a crap shoot whether or not the driver would be fast enough for us to make it."
"Years later when DVDs started becoming more prevalent, they STILL didn't put shows on collectable media regularly. You couldn't just get an entire season of a show and binge it."
"At most you could find a 'best-of' compilation of five or six of the most popular episodes, and that was only if the show was incredibly popular."
"And what I am describing here was considered 'having it good' compared to older people."
~ McFlyyouBojo
GiphySay Cheese!
"That it was incredibly common to just not have pictures of events or other things we see as important now."
"Not only did we have entire vacations where no pictures were taken, we could go months without a single picture being taken of any member of our family unless it was particularly notable."
"A trip to St Louis? No pictures. A trip to Disneyland? Maybe a picture at the entry gate or one of the souvenir pictures of us with a character."
"A trip to zoo? No pictures. An average day? Forget about it!"
"Frequently, the only pictures taken were at major holidays like Christmas or on someone's birthday."
~ bbbbbthatsfivebees
"I explained that to my kids the other day."
"What if every picture you took cost a dollar?
"And you don’t know if it’s even good until probably weeks later, as long as the photo lab doesn’t f*ck up processing."
"Or your film or pictures don't get lost in the mail going to or from the developer or they don't send you someone else's photos by mistake."
~ beebsaleebs
"You had to plan ahead to take a photo."
"'Did you remember the camera? Did you remember to buy film or flashbulbs?”
~ brazilliandanny
GiphySo Few Options
"It's an exceptional AMOUNT of media to consume now. In the 90s, you had 3-4 super popular channels, and 4-5 low rated channels. They all showed one show at a time."
"Now we have a dozen streaming services with infinite media options."
"It's becoming increasingly difficult to engage in office conversation because so much content is available, people do not have to stray as far from their interest to consume content they want to consume."
~ MemeTeamMarine
Smoking Or Non?
"They understand restaurants had 'smoking sections' and that bars & clubs were filled with cigarette smoke. But I don't think many understood how pervasive smoking was."
"Non-smoking areas or sections didn’t exist before the 1980s. There were ashtrays and people smoking literally EVERYWHERE."
"Jury boxes had ashtrays in front of every juror. Judge smoked, lawyers smoked, the gallery smoked."
"You smoked on planes, trains, busses, taxicabs, and in all transportation centers."
"You smoked at the library, the PTO meetings at schools, the town hall and all city offices. Hell, you could smoke at the courtyard at my High School as a student."
"You smoked in the elevator and on the escalator. The mall. The grocery store. Sports venues. Doctor's offices. Hospitals. Sitting at your desk at work even if you were in a cubicle or open area."
"The movies. The plays, opera, concerts and every other public performance, people smoked."
"A non-smoker would come home often smelling like smoke. One was constantly surrounded by smoke. It was insane."
~ parkerjh
"You literally made ash trays as a grade school art project, that’s how common it was."
~ _Poffertje_
GiphyWhat Choices?
"Probably under estimating how few choices there were."
"Today, it seems like everything imaginable is available in a variety of sizes, delivered to your door over night."
"Catalogs and mail order had 4-6 week delivery."
"Malls were the best thing ever—all the stores in one place, a wide variety of products and sizes and not downtown."
~ 2Loves2loves
"And also just how little people knew they were missing out. If it wasn't on network evening television (Channels 2, 4, 7, 9, and 11), or on a store shelf in your town, or in the Sunday newspaper... it simply didn't exist for you."
"If you had an inkling something existed—say, tin foil that comes in sheets instead of one giant roll—you could go around asking people, if you wanted. But you were more than likely to just get a shrug and, 'Why would you want such a thing?'."
"Let's say you were particularly enterprising, so you dial '0' and ask the operator for the number for corporate headquarters of Reynolds Aluminum Foil, if you knew the city it was in. Because there was no internet, and the only way to find a number was by dialing '0' and speaking to a telephone operator."
"But even if you spoke to someone at Reynolds, they had no way to exchange money for goods at that level, and they probably would just tell you they sell it in the Ohio area, and that would be that."
"You went to the market. They have one brand of pancake mix, and no one had ever heard of anything different, and why would you want a different brand, anyway?"
"Then you go to the hardware store, and they carry one brand of paint, and no one had ever heard of any other brand of paint."
"And it was that way for a long, long time."
~ nOwsL-ACEna-pe2323
GiphyOne For the Road
"How common drinking & driving was."
"Until MADD came along, people did this routinely."
"It's where 'one for the road' originated."
~ HailRoma
"Yes! When my friends and I had our 18th birthdays in late 1979, the thing to do was to celebrate by driving through Beer Barn, where you could literally drive-through to get beer, wine, wine coolers, whatever."
"Then open them up and drive while drinking. At 18. This was in Texas."
"It also was not uncommon for my dad to drive while drinking when he was taking us wherever at night."
"Zero education on why you should not do that."
~ emeraldcity4341
Good & Bad
"I am definitely older (born in 1949 so Baby Boomer)."
"What today's young people don't appreciate is how, growing up, we had to invent our own sources of fun."
"There were no video games (which I enjoy playing), just 3 channels on a black-and-white tv (we didn't get color until 1967), and no real entertainment aimed at kids."
"All we could do is interact with each other and play established games like marbles or maybe an organized sport like Little League baseball."
"There was a baseball diamond, overgrown with weeds, across the street from us, but mostly we played in the woods that surrounded us, climbing trees pretending to be pirates or some such.
"I loved the bookmobiles that would visit my street, and I must have read every biography (all bound in blue covers) in my elementary school library."
"It was a different era with many fewer distractions and much more time for sustained imagination."
"Being a different place and time, we developed different skills for interacting with the world and each other than young people do today."
"Was it better? That's hard to say. We tended to have an insular view of our own little world, while today it is hard to escape what it happening everywhere on Earth."
"We had to wait days for a letter to arrive, and we shared a party phone line with our neighbor's phone. That is a far slower pace than today's instantaneous texting culture. (Yes, I do text.)"
"Some things have been lost while others have been gained. That's the way it always will be. Just wait."
~ BOBauthor
GiphyIn Chilton's article—referenced at the beginning—he stated:
"We [Gen X] will be the last generation to know the world without...
- Cable TV
- Cell Phones
- The internet
- Seat belt laws
- Remote controls for the TV"
What would you add to the list?
Redditor Turbulent-Ad-7862 wanted to hear about everyone's thoughts on the first person they had sex with, so they asked:
"How do you feel towards the person you lost your virginity to? Do you still remember them?"
Oh... the first.
I have two. (Not at the same time).
One of each gender.
Still care deeply about both.
HER
Happy Its Me GIF by Kiaundra JacksonGiphy"Pretty sure she was the one who got away, but we dated in high school and she moved away before our relationship could find a conclusion. At this point, it's probably just nostalgia... lol."
Dewey_Bosh
Oh Them
"I don’t feel one way or another. I haven’t seen her in over 20 years or so. I haven’t thought about her in years until this post."
1980pzx
15~ years for me and exactly the same. This post reminded me of her and honestly, I hope she’s doing well. A quick Facebook search shows she married the guy she dated after me and they had a kid. That’s wonderful and I’m glad for her."
UncoolSlicedBread
"Same situation for me, only it has been more like 10 years instead of 20! I actually almost forgot about the guy until I saw this post, lol."
MsSibylline
Best Of...
"Well on the 'hot/crazy' matrix she was firmly in the top right-hand corner lol. So I remember her very vividly, the sex is still some of the best that I've ever had. Luckily I had some older and wiser friends who kind of dragged me out of that relationship. For which I am very grateful. I have no idea what became of her, and I don't particularly care. :-) "
BeerPoweredNonsense
Better than me...
"I miss her, to be honest. She was fun, fiercely intelligent, and far too good for me. It was humbling being completely ill-equipped to argue with her, but fun to watch her demolish adults in debate and run rings around them in conversation. It’s been 22 years since I last saw her, 17 since we last communicated by email. She has a family of her own now and inevitably was an enormous success in her career."
Prudent-Earth-1919
Still Strong...
just married love GIFGiphy"I've been with her for 10 years and I hope to still be with her for another 60 or so."
Caractacutetus
"I mean, we've been married for 15 years and have 5 kids. I guess she's OK."
aroundincircles
It's amazing that people can make it work for life.
It gives me hope.
Though I'll stay a cynic.
Why Not?
Snl Queen GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy"Oofta, I do remember them. But it’s not a romantic story at all. I was caught up in the 'everyone is doing it, better get it over with' and I lost it to a stranger at 15. He was also 15 and it was his first time. 😩 "
Ashley0716
So far, so good...
"Pretty damn good. It's only been a few months but I'm totally into him and (despite his self-proclaimed aversion to relationships) he pushed to be exclusive and he's texting on an almost daily basis wanting to get together. As for how I feel, 50% horny, 40% happy, and 10% anxious sums it up well."
_eviehalboro
Memories
"It was my high school girlfriend. I ended up breaking up with her. We hooked up again about 6 months after the breakup. Just casual sex. No labels. Ended up going to different colleges in the same city. Hooked up and went on some dates during our freshman year. Still no labels."
"Eventually she basically gave me an ultimatum. Said she emotionally couldn’t do the casual thing any more. Basically, we get back together for real or we go our separate ways. I wasn’t willing to get back together, but I respected her decision and didn’t want to toy with her feelings. She wanted to be together, and I knew that any kind of just treating her like a normal friend would have only given her hope. So I basically just cut out all communication."
"That’s been 8-9 years ago now. She seems to be doing well. Just recently got engaged. She was a good girl, and I’m happy for her. Wish it didn’t have to end as it did because she was cool and I liked spending time with her. But it would have been selfish and emotionally manipulative to do anything besides cut off communication as I did. I have nothing but fond memories of her. I hope she’d say the same of me."
ShitfacedGrizzlyBear
17
"He was a friend I met during a school theatrical production. I was 17, I told my dad I was staying back at school to do assignments and then hiked it to his place. His father nearly caught us. He’s a good person and has come so far. He was addicted to prescription meds for a long while. I won’t ever forget him and I hope he’s doing well since coming off that sh*t. :) "
OttersAndOttersAndOt
Ugh... HER
Angry Fed Up GIFGiphy"I still remember her, but I hate her guts now. She ended up cheating on me, and then thought it would be alright to still be friends after."
Ghoulthrower676
The one person we can't ever forget.
Good or bad experience... that first time and person stays with us.
"What is the worst mistake of your life?"
A Penny Saved...
"Not putting money away for savings early enough."
"Start early!"
"Make it automatic!!"- NecroJoe
animation saving GIF by MOOTGiphyEducation Should Be Practical, Not A Bragging Right...
"Working my a** off getting 3 useless degrees."
"I fell into the trap of believing that high grades and multiple degrees = good, stable, high paying jobs."
"Lmao."
"Looking back I can’t believe I was so naive."- Kla1996
"Choosing the wrong major in university and now I'm stuck in my career."- AmbitiousPanda9806
"Going to college when I didn't know what I wanted to do. Went because it was 'what we were supposed to do'."
"I went to a magnet high school, so we were never educated about professional certificates or given the tools to start our own business."
"We were just shuffled into college, because we were a 'gifted' school. I even distinctly remember one of our teachers pointing to some of the construction workers out the window and telling us 'that's what happens when you don't go to college'."
"Now I have my degree, way to much f*cking debt and im not even working in the field I got my degree in."
"Thanks brainwashing!"- Quave11
Studying K-Pop GIFGiphyThere's A Great Big World Out There...
"I have many, but the worst could be isolating myself from the real world to the point I started to experience symptoms of psychosis."- negocpu4·
Not Everyone Is A Team Player
"Trusting a supervisor and believing that people at my job will 'do the right thing'.'- Properclearance
A Decision Never To Be Taken Lightly
"Getting married."
"Or 'marrying the wrong person' would be more accurate, I guess."
"We got married in 2001 and just divorced in April, but I left her (for the last time) in 2015 after getting solid proof that she had been cheating."
"She now has 4 kids by 4 different guys."
"Three of them born while we were together and just 1 is mine."
"Tip of this depressing iceberg, unfortunately."- Parabola1979
Season 10 Nbc GIF by One ChicagoGiphyIt's Never Too Early...
"Not buying a house when I was 8."
"I’ll never recover from this."- DiscombobulatedPay51
You Never Know Who You Can Trust
"Letting my mother have complete control of my finances when I got my first job."
"She stole everything from me."- XxieatoutnunsxX
Ulterior Motives Are Sadly Real...
"Trying to help people that didn’t deserve it."- baldeagle1337
if youre sure that will help season 8 GIFGiphySome Bad Habits Are Hard To Break...
"Smoking my first cigarette."
"No doubt."- sicilian504
When You Know You're in a Bad Situation, GET OUT!
"I thought if I was positive and receptive I would be able to climb and earn like my boss did."
"Wasted 7 years making 8 bucks an hour under a boss who made 108/hr (one hundred eight, no typo) at a grocery store. plus Sunday pay."
"He and I found out together that the union let corporate pull the ladder up behind them a decade before."- VAShumpmaker
Never Take A Good Situation For Granted
"Being mean to my wife and son when I was younger."
"We got married at 18 and I was just immature and was always taking my job home and just getting upset over really nothing."
"We’re still married after 32 years and over past several years I have come to realize how lucky I have them in my life and will do anything for them."- VerticalMARS-72
90 Day Fiance Hug GIF by TLCGiphySeeking Help Is Not A Sign Of Weakness
"Years of untreated mental illness."- goodgirlgonebad75
Always Practicality First
"Not paying off my mortgage 17 years ago when I had the money."
"Instead I used it to renovate my house to add two bedrooms and a den."
"At the time I thought it was more important for each of my four kids to have their own room (they were sharing two each before then) and a bigger family room."
"I’m kicking myself because had I used the money to pay off the mortgage instead, I’d have had an extra $3000 a month in my pocket."
"I could have saved up that money and extended my house a few years later."- Keithninety
Sometimes we don't realize we made the wrong decision till it's far too late.
But looking back can't change what can't be undone.
All we can do is look forward, and move on.
Redditor ameen__shaikh was hoping the kids of sex workers would be willing to share their discoveries, so they asked:
"Children of sex workers, how did you find out your mom/dad was a sex worker?"
Truth First
Hey Girl Rose GIFGiphy"My dad straight up told me he was a gigolo in Denver in the 80s, 30 years later. He had moved out there to get away from an abusive home life when he turned 18 and found that that was the best way to make ends meet."
Stillawakeat330am
Do What You Have To Do
"My mom wasn’t in sex work anymore when I was born, but she raised my older brother on the money she got as a stripper. She worked customer service jobs my entire life. When I was around 7 or 8, I went to go do something on the family computer and I saw a Facebook message she sent to her friend referencing her days as a 'dancer.'"
"I was super excited upon reading this and confronted my mom, thinking she was a ballerina or something. She explained to me (in the most age-appropriate terms she could) that she was a stripper. Of course, she didn’t go into all the details until I was older."
infectedorchid
Shut up Auntie!
"My aunt drunkenly told me that my mom was a stripper one night and not a FedEx driver as she had told me. She traveled a lot (apparently she was a hot commodity) and would tell me that she was staying with her friend when she had to work because she lived closer to work. As a child, I had no reason to not believe my mom. I liked having her home a lot when I was young."
"I was 14 when my aunt told me and my mom had just quit and got a job as a secretary at that point. I wasn't upset by it. I was actually kind of proud that she was a traveling stripper and she brought in a lot of customers. My mom was LIVID my aunt told me though."
Sedaisedaiayay
Nice Men
"I remember living in a den, I was young maybe 6-7, I asked mom why her job was to dress up at night, and she told me she went on dates with nice men. I put two and two together probably around puberty. I didn’t put four and four together and stopped to think about how it affected me till my 30s."
EDMElevatorguy
Straight Up
"The woman admitted to it on my adoption papers."
Minute_Storm_5199
Good to always lead with the truth.
They'll find out anyway.
That's A lot
Confused Over It GIFGiphy"My mom told me so that I can be the person to report it if she ever went missing after a job. When I was 10, she would leave me names, emails, phone numbers, etc. anything she had to help identify a client."
DizzyConversation429
Work Bag
"My mom was a stripper trying to raise four kids. She would work nights, and I would see strange outfits and shoes in her closet and her 'work bag,' everything smelt strongly of cigarettes. I watched the movie Independence Day where Will Smith's wife was an exotic dancer… and I somehow figured out what that was."
"One morning she and I were sitting at the kitchen table together eating breakfast, I was in 4th grade, and I asked her what her job was. She looked at me funny and I continued by asking her if she was a stripper. She asked me why I thought that and I explained everything I listed above. She then confirmed my suspicions and thought my dad (her ex-husband) spilled the beans to me."
"I assured her that was not the case and she asked me never to tell my three brothers. I never did. She eventually got out of this line of work and is now very successful. I’m proud of her and although I used to resent her for some of her choices, I understand now she did what she could to do to take care of her kids."
Jiwalk88
Don’t blame Her
"My mom just told me and my other two sisters straight up. We were 11, 12, and 17. We were just okay with it I guess? Not like we had much of a choice on what our mom would be. She went on and did that for 15 more years...."
BackgroundImpress127
When I was 11
"Interestingly enough my grandma on my dad's side (my mom was the sex worker) was supposed to be punishing me for smoking weed or something I don’t really remember but to get in my head she found my mom's online profile advertising herself and showed it to me when I was about 11 years old. I moved in with my mom later on and she’s been in that line of work my entire life."
MeteorVesta
People have their preferences.
Let it be. We applaud these parents for broaching such difficult topics with their kids.