A family from Georgia has maintained a unique heritage by transmitting a mysterious song through generations, dating back to their ancestors’ era of enslavement. Upon investigation, researchers confirmed that this song was an authentic West African funeral tune in the Mende language, remarkably preserved through mother-to-daughter transmission over several centuries.
People Divulge Their Weirdly Interesting Family Facts
Families are full of all kinds of secrets and surprising moments, and it’s important that we keep them in the family.
But sometimes, in the anonymity of a Reddit thread, some of the truth comes out.
Redditor QueenMoogle asked:
“What are some weird or interesting facts about your families?”
There was talk of family trees.
“I placed my newborn for adoption (open adoption, chose the family myself). A few years later my sister got pregnant and placed her newborn with the same family.”
“So the children are growing up as siblings and are cousins by blood. (This was over 20 years ago.)” – ihateknickknacks
“Not that unheard of but my husband likes to tell people about when he first met my family. He went with me to visit one side (my Mother’s family) for Thanksgiving and met many of my Uncles, Aunts, and cousins.”
“The next day, we were going to have Thanksgiving on my other side (my Father’s family). When we walked in the door that next day, he stopped and his eyes got really wide, and he loudly whispered, “These are the same people,’ and I went, ‘Yeah, I know… surprise!’”
“My mother’s brother married my father’s sister and my mother’s other sister married my father’s first cousin.”
“And then if that isn’t confusing enough, my Grandmother and Grandfather were first cousins when they got married. (legal as he was adopted as a teenager).”
“My Grandmother said she did this so she never had to change her last name and she was the only girl short enough for him. My Grandfather was only 5 ft 2 inches and my Grandmother was 5 ft. Both came from Canada. Out of their 8 children, including two sons, the tallest is one of my aunts at 5 ft. 4 in. Luckily my mother (5 ft) married my dad who was 6ft 2 inch so we at least have some height in our family.” – Tbjkbe
“We recently found out that I have at least 5 half-siblings because my parents decided it would be nice (and financially beneficial) for my dad to make some donations around the time I was born.” – BananaMantis
Some had some tough family history to accept.
“My great grandfather got in a fight with his sister when he was 12, said ‘F**k this,’ asked for work on a boat as a cabin boy, got on a ship, and left England.”
“He never went back. We have no idea if that side of the family even knows he survived, but I kind of want to go to the English town and tell my distantly extended family, ‘So you know that little kid in your family history who just sort of disappeared? Well, he lived! Surprise!’”
“Another great grandfather stole a cannon from China (which my grandfather blew up accidentally with my dad nearby), then left his future descendants a letter, telling us, ‘If you still have this last name and go to this part of China, don’t mention your name. They might still be pretty p**sed off that I stole their cannon.’”
“A few generations back, a dude got kicked out of Norway for getting his maid and his sister pregnant. When he got to the US, he then befriended another guy from Scandinavia and stole his wife.”
“It’s funny because part of the family laughs about this, and part refuses to admit it ever happened even though we have proof it did.” – Vonozar
“My great grandmothers maiden name was Messerschmidt. rumor has it that a relative designed the Messerschmidt planes in Germany during the first world war. There’s no way to prove it though.”
“And on the other side of the family, My great-great grandfather’s name was James Potter.” – shroomie19
“My great uncle was in the car with JFK when he was assassinated.” – Sterling_-_Archer
“My grandfather was the first Black aerospace engineer in the United States.” – cycloneju51
“My great grandparents both worked for Thomas Edison, which is how they met. That great-grandmother is super bada**, too… she came to the States when she was 15 and didn’t speak English, just as the German Depression was getting bad.”
“She had to teach herself English and raise enough money to bring her starving family over from Germany to join her here. She lost all her savings in the US stock market crash and had to start all over, but she did it!”
“Okay, I talked to my mom and I was mistaken. Only my great-grandmother worked for him originally, and she met my great-grandfather while in NYC with Edison and his second wife.”
“She went out with a friend who was also German, who brought her out with a group of German friends, which is where she met my great-grandfather. After they were married, he too went to work for Edison, and that’s where I got the story mixed up. I’m sorry for the error!”
“Also, a commenter asked how they thought of him, since Edison was known as kind of a jerk. I copied my reply from another comment here:”
“So I asked my mom, and she said that her grandmother never felt he liked her very much. She was maid to him and his second wife toward the end of his life.”
“When she brought him meals or came in to tidy up, he wouldn’t speak to her and wouldn’t even make eye contact.”
“He was able to be up and walking around the grounds and conversing with others though, and he always wondered if it was because of her station, or because she was German.” – joey1115
Others were incredibly impressed by their family histories.
“We only die in March. Dogs, grandparents, uncles, we all die in March.” – AnarchyBea
“I had an ancestor who lied about his age to join up with the Union Army in the American Civil War in 1861. He fought in most of its bloodiest battles: Antietam, Shiloh, and Gettysburg to name a few.”
“He survived all of those to come home to the family farm at the end of the war, where he promptly died of a fever he had picked up in camp.” – captainthomas
“My grandad was poisoning my nan’s tea with rat poison for ages. She was documenting it and told the police, they did a huge bust on him and arrested him in front of all their kids (inc. my mum).”
“In court, he admitted to it, he agreed to all the charges, he did the deed. Eventually, the judge, flummoxed, asked ‘… But why?’”
“And his answer was, ‘Because we agreed to it.’”
“Apparently, they had made an agreement to use rat poison to home-treat her deep vein thrombosis (this brand was basically a blood thinner so the rats couldn’t clot when they got injured, and they both distrust doctors). This woman is crazy and I fully believe my grandad’s side.”
“The case got thrown out of court.” – Howlingz
While some secrets are hard for us to accept, especially when they relate to our families, many of the truths in our families are what helped form our families into what they are, from the family tree itself to important involvement in history.
People Who’ve Taken A DNA Test Share The Biggest Family Secrets They’ve Uncovered
The human story is an impossibly long and yet relatively short period of history. And most humans are met with an insatiable desire to figure out their purpose in life—something sometimes their past can shed a light on.
In our infinite curiosity, we’ve updated technology to the point we can now trace our very own DNA back generations and find members of our extended family from all around the world.
However, digging up our genealogy can unearth some secrets we may have never wanted to hear.
So, when Redditor VideoFork asked:
“People who have taken an ancestry DNA test and accidentally uncovered a family secret, what was it?”
People shared their stories from inception to thrilling conclusion.
Deceptive Parents
“Not my story, but someone very close to me discovered that none of the ethnic background that they were expecting was present in the results.”
“This person, whose father was deceased at the time, questioned their mother. The mother admitted that the person’s father was not biological as they believed their entire life (they were older than 40).”
“The mother gave the name of the biological father. My friend then found the biological father, contacted him, and then discovered that they had several 1/2 siblings.”
“The biological father was unaware he had another child and accepted my friend into his family as did the siblings.”-galtsgulch232
“My bio-dad left his family and two daughters in Washington and married my mom in Los Angeles 5 weeks later.”
“I found his first marriage certificate but nothing about a divorce. I’m pretty sure he was a bigamist.”-khegiobridge
“I have an uncle that was put up for adoption. He contacted my grandma and she thought he was going to extort her (they’re well off). Turns out he’s a multi, multi millionaire on his own.”
“They still have limited contact, though my dad has reached out and formed a relationship.”
“Apparently they look exactly alike and have the same personality (which sounds kind of stupid now that I’m writing it out, but they’re only half-siblings).”-RolandDPlaneswalker
New And Nearby
“I exported my raw DNA from 23andme and threw it through promethease to find out why I have porphyria, which is supposed to be hereditary.”
“My mom and dad are definitely my mom and dad, but neither of them have this, which means it was environmental exposure that caused it.”
“Discovered a rare AMPD enzyme deficiency in mom, found out dad carried a recessive LUPUS gene and gave it to my sister. DNA is WILD.”-djspacebunny
“A woman over in Chicago decided to find out who her real parents were. She was getting close to 60 and realized that there may not be much time left to find her father.”
“So through the magic of ancestry she was matched to my grandfather.”
“She reached out to him and told him who her mother was. He didn’t recognize the name but dug up his little black book and lo and behold…there she was.”
“So now I’ve got a new aunt!”-dazeyd
“My male cousin did one and found a female cousin we did not know about. He reached out to her and apparently our deceased uncle was good friends with her mother.”
“Mom wanted a baby so uncle got her pregnant simply as a sperm donor.”
“Female cousin lived a few blocks away from my grandmother. She had met her a few times going around selling Girl Scout cookies or something.”
“My grandmother had no idea that she was buying cookies from her granddaughter.”-OrangeTree81
A New Extension Of Family
“Not me, but a friend never knew who his father was (mom had a weekend fling in college and never contacted the guy after) and his wife helped him use ancestry.com to try and track him down.”
“My friend reached out and the guy was obviously surprised, but flew across the country to meet him.”
“They have a great relationship now, the dad attended his wedding, and they try to get their families together a couple times a year or so.”-djsquidnasty
“A full 100% older brother. My mother got pregnant by my father before the were married. Scandalous in 1960.”
“So, with my father’s knowledge of the situation, mom left town, and lived with my aunt until the birth. Mom gave the baby up for adoption, and then returned home.”
“A couple years later, she married my dad and had three more children together, including me.”
“Fifty five years later, after both my parents had died, my aunt let it slip that me and my siblings that were not the only children of our parents.”
“To paraphrase from Star Wars, there is another. My sister took a DNA test, and a couple of year later she got a hit. Soon thereafter, we met our new big brother and his family (wife, kids) and have become quite close.”-Freeagnt
“My great gran (who I knew) was an orphaned live in servant in Greenock, Scotland in 1900, got pregnant by her employer, kicked out, ended up in the poorhouse where she abandoned the baby.”
“DNA turned up the granddaughter of the baby. Met her in Glasgow a couple of years ago. She turned up as a cousin via DNA.”-TheRealMommaG
A Life-Changing Secret
“So, I did the health DNA one 18 months ago because I wanted to see if I had the breast cancer gene, as there is several incidences on both sides of my family.”
“Got my results and became very confused, it claimed I had no Italian despite my father’s grandma literally coming over from Sicily in 1920. It took me a few minutes to realize what that actually meant.”
“My parents have been together since my mother was 14, I was born when she was 17, and my father joined the military and married my mother.”
“Called my mom and she literally said ‘that’s interesting.’ Then she asked me not to talk to my father and she would explain everything the next time I visited. She did not, and just refused i talk about it.”
“Honestly, I was just shook. I did not see it coming and it was never even presented to be a possibility to me. My sister ended up doing a DNA test and it showed that we were half siblings.”
“I went no contact with my mother 4 months ago, due to this incident and several others. I haven’t told my dad but I realize at some point the truth is going to come out, my sister matched with some of my fathers relatives while I did not so if anyone checks that sh*t, they’re gonna be asking questions.”-sunshineykris
“That my grandmother was biracial. She was abandoned shortly after birth at a church by an older white lady, adopted by a white farmer with 11 kids, stopped talking to most of that family due to nondescript unpleasantness as an older teen.”
“She died 20 years before I was born and looks like Maya Rudolph in the few photos I’ve seen but insisted she was part-Sicilian.”
“My father and his brother both look more white than not; my father worshipped the ground she walked on and never questioned her ancestry.”
“My uncle was always pretty sure she was Black and argued with her a lot (both dad and uncle ended up being super active in the civil rights movement and still are devoted to antiracism work nearly 60 years on, which largely stemmed from these discussions growing up).”
“Anyway, my mom (divorced from my dad) got me a DNA test a few years ago. My grandmother was definitely half-Black, I have no Sicilian or Italian DNA.”
“I’ve connected with a few Black distant cousins over email and zoom, am waiting for the pandemic to mostly end to talk to my dad about it and introduce him to more family.”-ReddishWedding2018
“Not me, but a friend. My friend (34F[emale]) decided to get her twin sister and parents a DNA testing kit for Christmas.”
“When her parents opened the gift they looked at each other and said ‘Oh…thanks.’ They quickly tried to move on to other presents. My friend was slightly confused, but dropped it.”
“Later they went for their Christmas Day walk. The mom and sister were walking ahead while she walked with her dad. Her dad spilled the beans! Her and her sister were adopted.”
“The mother looked back and started crying – she couldn’t believe her husband told her daughter without them talking about it first. They were going to keep it a secret forever.”
“She had never suspected she or her sister were adopted because they look a lot like their parents. They are also very short, as are their parents. Whoops!”-hyggelady
With new technology comes great opportunities. However, this is a clear case of “be careful what you wish for.”
Not everyone finds out that their whole life is a lie, but still-an opportunity to trace your heritage is not something to take lightly.
Be prepared for it if you decide to do so.