Anyone have crazy family legends? Were they correct or incorrect?

Question

Hey guys, Just curious as to who may have some wild family stories, whether true or false. I've had a long-time story in my family about African genealogy but found out my deceased grandpa was not talking about direct ancestry but that one of his cousins married a black girl lol.

Answer 1

There were family stories about the Indian princess who received a dowry from the King of France (true), and a young ancestor who explored from the wilderness of Labrador to the shores of the Great Lakes and far West into what is now Wisconsin and Minnesota (true), and an ancestor who was burned at the stake for witchcraft (false ... he was convicted and sentenced to death, but exiled instead ... fortunately because he'd have had no descendants at the time!)

Answer 2

My mother's family has passed down the tradition never to have anything to do with sheep, that sheep brought financial ruin.   But when I asked the whys of this, no one knew why, and since my granddad was a Texas cattle rancher, I always assumed it was merely a cattleman's prejudice.   Then I discovered that his paternal grandmother's family had immigrated from the Highlands of Scotland around 1800 during the time of the Highland Clearances.  At this time,  the lairds turned out the peasantry in order to graze sheep, and many penniless crofters immigrated to the United States and Canada.  I suppose this prejudice against sheep became a little muddled over time.

My mother would also never let me tell a dream before breakfast else it would come true.  I would be interested in the origin of this superstition.

Answer 3

My great-grandmother passed down an "old Indian remedy" (her grandmother was Cherokee, I think it was, or maybe it was  her great-grandmother) to get rid of a high fever.

     You take a thin slice of a white onion, barely warm it in a skillet, and then place it in a light-colored wash cloth or piece of cloth, and pin it around the feverish person's foot--with the onion against the sole of the foot. Then put a white sock on that foot.  When you can literally smell the onion "cooking", it means it is drawing the fever out of the body.  Believe it or not, the person's foot will NOT smell like an onion when it's done its job. You may have to launder the wash cloth/piece of cloth, but it does not retain the onion smell either.

     I've had people tell me I'm crazy or nuts, but once they try it for themselves, they realize I'm telling the honest truth.  :)

Answer 4

My great-grandmother always said that her mother was a full-blooded Seminole Indian, and that her earliest memory was of playing with a corn husk doll on an Indian Reservation.  But after researching all her lines back many generations, I've found nothing but plain old northern European ancestry.  When I asked a relative about the Seminole story, she said, "Oh, she always told ME she was Italian!"  

Okay, obviously my g-g'ma liked to tell stories!  But recently, a cousin had an mtDNA test which indicates that my great-grandmother's maternal forebear was Native American!  This lines ends with my mysterious "Nancy", the only one of my great-grandma's ancestors that I've never been able to find info on!

Answer 5

fun question.  One of the stories passed down involved my great grandfather Schaaf , who served in the Civil War as Henry Fisher....He claimed to his kids that he had been captured and sent to Andersonville prison, where he somehow was consigned to be hung.  Overnight, however, he was exchanged for Confederate prisoners.  The whole experience caused his hair to turn white overnight.

The fact was that he spent much time in a military hospital with swamp fever, etc. and was never in any fighting and was never captured.  

Another story about him happened in the 1890's when he supposedly beat a wagoneer who was beating an old horse trying to get up the hill in front of their house in Peoria (7th avenue, if you know Peoria).  The wagoneer was taken away and died several days later.  Great Grandfather wasn't charged, but he moved his family out of town right away.  This may have been true, as it was one of his daughters who related this and who claimed to have seen it done.

I had also heard that some of my ancestors were defenders of the Fort Boonesboro during the famous Revolutionary War seige by the natives.  This all proved to be completely true, as about 4 of my Proctor ancestors and their brothers were there.

My grandfather supposedly married a lady near Peoria, but she was killed in a trolley accident at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago  in 1893.  Neither confirmed or denied, he married again several years later and had my father's family.

Another grandfather supposedly was in the KKK in Illinois in the twenties.  Probably true, but only long enough to see how much trouble he could get into, so he quit.  

An uncle was supposedly a well known singer during the second decade of the 20th century.  It turned out that he was, in fact, a great singer and he set records for length of bookings at big venues in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco.  He had a nervous breakdown during the time of WWI and returned to Peoria where his wife nursed him until he died in 1921.  The family used to say that his wife was a showgirl (not quite true) and that she sewed diamonds and other jewelry into her clothes for safekeeping. (True)

Another ancestor on my mother's side went up the Missouri River with his family and started a plantation near where St. Joseph's MO is today a few years after Lewis and Clark.  This was true, and they headed back downstream when the natives, at the behest of the British traders, started attacking them before the war of 1812.  The would eventually wind up in central Illinois.  Others in that line were driven out of the bootheel of Missouri where they were trying to farm when the big New Madrid series of earthquakes happened.  That was true.

Another line said that one of their ancestors was used by William Penn and George Washington to negotiate with the Pennsylvania and New York Natives.  Sort of true, but a little later than William Penn -- Conrad Weiser was an in-law of the Faeg's (Fake) who was reknowned for his relationship with the tribes in that area from 1720 to about 1760.  

One ancient was supposed to have been on Charlie's side during the battle of Culloden Moor, and he and his brother's escaped punishment by carrying everything they could via ship to Ireland, then walked across Ireland and caught a ship for Maryland.   Maybe true of some woman's line in that family, but the truth seems to be that when the Kimzey's reached the Western Carolinas, they concealed their actual English background by claiming to have been Scots named McKimzey.    I don't know how they would have faked the language, though, and I think, perhaps, the whole story is more complicated.  I can only find 'Kimzey' in England prior to this, and no "McKimzey" names in Scotland.

Answer 6

Found out that there was a haunted mansion, and that it has been documented over the centuries, she is called the Brown Lady.  They don't know why she haunts raynham hall, but they have seen her for over 300 yrs.

Answer 7

Family lore is always considered dangerous territory in genealogy. It is usually undependable oral history, contains bias and mistakes, and is not verifiable.

I  became actively interested in genealogy about two years ago. Of the 13 stories my mother told to me, I have proved 10. With documents.

I'm still missing the stories about the Boston Tea Party, the escape of the Marquis during the French Revolution, and the killing of my witch ancestors in Salem.

Great fun. Happy hunting. Have a cup of tea while you're researching on the net, don't loose your head, and keep your head above water.

Answer 8

The only "family legend" is that on my Dad's side they came over on the Mayflower.  I have never found any evidence for this. However, his ancestors were from several of the 14 families who founded Germanna, Virginia, in 1714. AND I have found proof that at least 3 of the 102 Mayflower passengers were ancestors on my Mom's side.

All in all, on BOTH sides I have so many ancestors who were historical characters in the Colonies...

Answer 9

My dads great-great-grandpa was an outlaw.  Was in a gang of outlaws, you know.  I always heard he was a bad person, killed people.  Just mean.  I don't know if this part is true or not, but I was told they had to hold him down on the bed as he was dying, because he was screaming he could see the flames of h**l.

Answer 10

I know a family that had the story that one of their Swedish ancestors was Jewish.  But  when I looked up the records in Stockholm he was baptised Lutheran like every other Swede, his parents too.  It turned out he wasn't a Jew, but he actually was a jeweler.  Somebody listening to the story in English heard it not-quite-right, then spread it all around the family.

Answer 11

I've heard that my great-great-great grandfather's brother paid $300 to get out of fighting in the Civil War, he instead worked as a pastor and helped out in the civil war hospitals treating soliders and then he fled to Canada.  Also according to some family (which unfortunately some names & dates don't match up) we are supposedly of German Royalty from the 1600's.  Unfortunately the only info that we confirm with the dates and info we have that match up only go back to the 1750's.  Supposedly that same family tree has some relation to Milton Hershey (as in Hershey chocolate), his grandparents are supposedly part of our family tree, although we don't have any definate confirmation on that one.

Answer 12

Supposedly one of my 4X great grandmothers was the daughter of an Austrian Baron.  She loved a commoner, but daddy would never approve defiling the family name that way, so she eloped.  The two headed for Hamburg with daddy and some of his staff chasing them all the way.  They escaped aboard a ship to America, and while aboard ship adopted a newborn whose mother died in childbirth.  I always thought some family member who was overwrought after reading Prisoner of Zenda made this up, but it turns out to be true.

Another 4X great was the Deacon of Old South Church in Boston, and loaned his second best horse to Paul Revere for that ride of his.  Never got the horse back, either.