Recent 'Black Sheep'



Some people are afraid when they do their family history they will come across a 3rd great grandfather who was a horse thief or a deserter from the Army. Yes, you never know what may have happened during your ancestors’ lives on the family tree. But is nothing to be scared of, it was that relative for whatever reason had the problem … not you. What can be a bit unnerving is if you come across some disturbing news about a relative that only happened less than ten years ago – that you were totally unaware of.

That was my situation recently. While doing some other general research, I stumbled purely by accident on a brief summary with my husband’s family surname (which is an unusual surname) and reference to a killing using a .357 Glock pistol. Well, seeing that surname, killing and pistol had me totally curious.

With the brief bit of information, I went further, researching on Google and newspaper articles. Sure enough, the relative was my husband’s much younger 2nd cousin, who lived in the family hometown. My husband’s side of the family had not lived there for over 70 years but had kept a little contact with relatives there. Never had there been any mention of this 2nd cousin who became enraged that his wife might have been seeing another man, that the cousin found the man in a diner / bar one day and confronted the other man with the Glock pistol and immediately shot him, killing him. The cousin then left the location, driving off and within a few hours had pulled off the road and killed himself. This was in 2010. My husband had never been informed. As it was discovered his wife had not been unfaithful and the man killed was not seeing the cousin’s wife. Sad situation.

So yes, you have to be prepared to discover most anything … if it happened 150 years or 100 years or a month ago. Remembering it was not you … maybe for sure some scandal or a ‘black sheep’ in the family.

Related FamilyTree.com Blogs:

Black Sheep

Family Secrets

The Unspoken Side of Families

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