#UnusualFamily #OddFamily #FamilyTreeSecrets
Do you ever feel like your extended family is a little… unique? Maybe they have some quirky traditions or odd habits that make them stand out from the rest. Or perhaps there are some hidden secrets in your family tree that nobody talks about. Whatever the case may be, it’s fascinating to explore the intricacies of our family dynamics and uncover the stories that shape who we are.
In this article, we’ll dive into the world of unusual families and explore what makes them tick. From bizarre family traditions to mysterious family secrets, we’ll uncover the hidden gems that make each family so special. So grab a cup of tea, get comfy, and let’s take a journey into the weird and wonderful world of family dynamics.
Unusual Family Traditions 🎉
Every family has its own set of traditions that make them unique. Some families may have elaborate holiday celebrations, while others may have quirky rituals that they perform regularly. Here are some examples of unusual family traditions that you may find in your own family tree:
1. Dressing up in matching outfits for family gatherings
2. Having a “weirdest food contest” at every reunion
3. Playing a bizarre game like “family Olympics” where everyone competes in silly challenges
4. Holding weekly themed dinners where each family member takes turns choosing the theme
Family Secrets Revealed 🕵️♂️
Family secrets are a source of mystery and intrigue for many people. From long-lost relatives to hidden scandals, there’s no shortage of secrets lurking in the branches of our family trees. Here are some examples of family secrets that may be hiding in your own family history:
1. A famous ancestor who never achieved fame due to a scandalous past
2. A relative who disappeared mysteriously and was never heard from again
3. A family feud that has been kept under wraps for generations
4. An unexpected adoption or illegitimate child that nobody knew about
Navigating the Unusual Dynamics 🌳
It can be challenging to navigate the dynamics of an unusual family, especially when there are conflicting personalities or hidden secrets at play. Here are some tips for managing the unique dynamics of your own family:
1. Embrace the quirks and celebrate the differences that make your family special
2. Foster open communication and encourage family members to share their stories and secrets
3. Seek professional help if there are underlying issues that need to be addressed
4. Remember that every family has its own set of challenges and quirks, and that’s what makes them so interesting
In conclusion, every family is a little bit unusual in its own way. Whether it’s quirky traditions, hidden secrets, or conflicting personalities, our families shape who we are and where we come from. Embracing the weird and wonderful dynamics of our family trees can lead to a deeper sense of connection and understanding among family members. So next time you gather with your extended family, take a moment to appreciate the uniqueness that makes your family so special. Who knows what hidden gems you may uncover in the process?
My great aunt joined the circus! She ran away when she was 16, lived with elephants for 5 years, married a clown, and lived in a trailer.
My cousin murdered his father. Cousin has serious mental health problems.
My grandpa got kicked out of 4 schools including military school for disrespecting authority and also because he was caught in flagranti with the military school’s principal’s daughter.
And on of my aunts has 6 children from 4 different fathers and is on her I wanna say 8th marriage right now? I don’t think she know you can just date people without marrying them.
I don’t know if this qualify, but my grandmother’s family is really into their history, they fancy themselves having some sort of nobility (kinda true, but it’s an empty title) and have generally done quite a bit of genealogy work (that part is cool honestly). For context, we’re French.
My mom showed me the genealogical tree they had managed to put together one day, it had everyone descending from one ancestor born in the early 1800s, which isn’t that old but everyone had lots of kids so it ends up being a huge tree still. Everyone on it has their date of birth, date of death, and their professions as well as any official position they held.
So I see that my mom’s great aunt, that I had met once (she’s not that old, born in the 1940s) married her first degree cousin. Close enough to have the same maiden name cousin. Not that rare I guess.
But going further back, I notice the cousin of my great grandfather, specifically the “job” section. He worked as a groundskeeper of sort for a richer family in the North of France in the 1930s, a good job but nothing fancy.
**And then he became mayor in 1940. And was mayor until 1944 exactly.**
Now I know my basic history. This was in Nazi occupied France, he became a mayor just after the Nazis took power and stopped being a mayor somewhere during the Liberation.
So I had to tell my mom, hey, has anyone in the family considered if um … this dude maybe collaborated with the Nazis, was a collabo as we say in French ?
And she hadn’t. Apparently nobody had, and when she brought it up everyone was extremely offended and said I was interpreting things in a very negative way and we don’t have proof he wasn’t actually against the Nazis and only became mayor to protect his countrymen.
And it’s like no, of course, we don’t have proofs one way or another. But. Statistically speaking. It’s more likely that… You know.
Most of the family believes my step-grandpa murdered my grandma, but officially it was a “suicide”. She fled their house to a battered women’s shelter, where she stayed for the max amount of time they offered, after which she moved into an extended stay motel. She was found the next day with a phone cord wrapped around her neck. Not suspended from the ceiling, just wrapped around her neck. Apparently there was not enough proof to arrest the husband. He’s still out there somewhere. Obviously, none of us have contact with him.
My Mom’s brother (my uncle) had an affair with my Dad’s mom (my grandma). This happened in the 1980s and both were still married to their respective partners.
Well, my uncle was my mother’s “first”, and my brother 3 firstnames are my mother’s exes names, and my older sister’s father is now my aunt’s husband. I think i don’t need to go on … 😉
I’ve got an aunt on my dad’s side who we don’t talk about and has been struck from family records. She didn’t like my mom, claiming she was playing my dad and the she caused my grandfather’s heart attack (he has heart disease), and used to call day and night when my siblings and I were babies. My parents got a restraining order against her when she tried to choke out my brother as a toddler (before I was born). She ran off with some old dude after her first husband died and I guess they live somewhere on the west coast now.
Had no idea about any of this until my grandma died and suddenly people were asking if anyone was gonna tell my aunt or get in contact with her.
My grandmother came to the US from Korea with her four kids (my mom being one of them) but my grandfather preferred to stay in Korea. My mom had grown up, gotten married, and had me and my siblings before learning a few years ago that she has a half brother from my grandpa. Grandpa apparently found a mistress in Korea who is younger than my mom and had a kid with her, who is younger than my youngest sibling. He’s apparently a college student on the US east coast now.
This isn’t quite what you asked but if you enjoy this topic, I highly recommend the podcast “Ghost Story” from Wondery. It’s about a journalist that goes digging into his wife’s family history and uncovers some… unflattering information.
My grandmother’s brother started the worst cult in an entire country. Last time I googled him he was like 97 yo and I found articles about the police trying to investigate him yet again, though they thought possibly someone else had taken over most of the business the last few years. He was known for making people work extremely hard “for their own benefit” for nothing, while the leaders profited and lived a life of luxury cars and boats.. He started his cult after fleeing his own country because he left his wife and 5 kids with no child support ever paid, so he could never return and never did. He went to USA, joined a cult to learn, and settled in a neighbouring country of his home countru to start his own.
My first thought upon finding out was “oh this explains everything about grandma”.
She was raised in a family where 1 boy was picked to be the golden boy and raised to be the biggest turd there ever was in a manipulative as hell family. My grandmother did the exact same thing, picked one golden boy and treated the rest like utter shit. My uncle and grandmother among other things went on a “trip” with a sick old woman with dementia, when they came back he suddenly was in the old womans will, and when she soon after died he got her house instead of her kids and grandkids. He also got my grandmother’s house, for a way too low price, but never paid despite being rich (he started buying and renting apartments with the money he got from renting out the big house he stole from the old woman) so she didn’t have money to spend when old.
And so on. When my grandmother died, this uncle only showed up to find ways to get the things he’d already checked was worth anything, while pretending they were worth nothing (some things were already gone, guess who took it). Instead of cleaning her apartment out like the rest of us were doing. One tactic was to ask me “do you want that furniture?” because I was cleaning it. I of course said no, because I had no plans on getting into who gets what, I’d leave that for dad to debate with his siblings. He was waiting for me to say no, so then went on “okay then I’ll take it”. He found excuses to leave to not help do any work, at which point my dad who had been tired of his behaviour for years, stepped in to make sure he didn’t get the things he’d pointed to.
My cousin, the shitty uncles kid, lived in my grandmother’s house my uncle had paid nothing for, when my grandmother sold her car. The whole family was offered to buy the car, an old Toyota Yaris full of scrapes because she had her license way too long. I needed a car and bought it. Cousin arranged everything with the car. I called grandma to ask about the price. She set it down for me, around 1k euro. Cousin angrily called me to tell me not to call her “and stress her out”. Obviously angry that I got a family price on the car, money he was planning on stealing by making me pay him, “because the family would be angry it was unfair I got an advantage” on a car everyone had said no to before I was asked if I wanted it. He said that to my face, while living in the fucking very house my uncle bought for way too little for and never paid for.
I now have that furniture my uncle tried to take, and they’re my favourite, for petty reasons alone lol.
Half of my aunts/uncles are convinced that my grandfather killed my grandmother.
She died of breathing problems. Some think it was an asthma attack, others think he suffocated her with a pillow.
Two weeks later, the new mistress was moving in. So…
They are fighters for sure, but also love to shit talk behind everyone’s back first. I come from an alcoholic abusive family who’s related to a plantation owner from the 1800’s. The plantation owner was famous for dueling. So I come from a line of entitled racist loud mouths.
LOTS of infidelity in my extended family. There have been several surprise affair children that now come to our family events. We’ve stopped asking “who is that” and now say “which dad is theirs?”
My grandfather’s sisters were both put into mental institutions by their husbands during WW2. When my granddad came back from the war and found out, the one husband he could find, he nearly beat to death with his bare hands. Cops were called. It even made the local paper. He was not arrested lol. The other husband had smartly run off with his mistress never to be heard from again. Took years to get the women released into granddad’s custody but the damage from the asylum had already been done. They lived the remainder of their lives in assisted care facilities.
Grandfather’s brother, Jimmy, turned their dad into an alcoholic and got him to sign all of the family property (several hundred acres) over to him while blind drunk instead of dividing it equally as originally intended. Granddad only bothered fighting for a few acres around the house he had built and enough to fund the cost of their sister’s care. Yes, the same sisters that were dumped in the loony bin. Jimmy was present and very aware that they were put in there and did nothing about it and never did anything to help them in any way that he was not forced by the courts (or my granddad’s fists) to do. He apologized for his life long bad behavior at my grandmother’s funeral in front of everyone there (because of course too much attention was going to my dead grandmother). My mom forgave him (because she’s an amazingly kind lady). My aunt said nothing and walked out fuming. I stood up told him his apology was as useless as his existence and that he was welcome to leave now that he was done wasting our oxygen. I wasn’t invited to his funeral for some reason…
The funniest one I think though is my very short blonde haired blue eyed great grandmother dragged her two toddler daughters across the deep south in the early 1920s in an open wagon with a black man (her neighbor who refused to let her go alone) to hunt down her wayward husband that was shacking up with another woman. She found him by going to the foreman (he worked construction for company towns) with their kids on her hips demanding to know where the hell her deadbeat husband was. She made him build her and the girls a house and a store to run and told him that was it, he wasn’t allowed to travel for work anymore. Other details I’ve learned about her through the years makes me think he was very lucky to be allowed to keep his manhood. They never had any more children though…
A whole lot of mysterious disappearances…aka murders.
•My mother tried to have my wife killed (worse was that it wasn’t even the first time someone tried to purposefully kill her). She later ended up killing herself.
•My uncle murdered my aunt and is now locked away in some high security psychiatric facility somewhere (dad refused to say where, now he’s dead and I don’t have much interesting in looking)
•My mother tried to revenge porn my MIL (long story, happened before either my wife or I were born)
•My MIL was also unintentionally the reason why my mother was sent to conversion therapy (another long story)
•My twin sister wanted to name her kid after her baby daddy AND fiancée (and yes I mean *fiancée*, not fiancé). She settled on a Spanish masculine version of my name.
These aren’t really secrets but I do believe they count as “messy” lol. I may edit this if I remember anymore.
99% sure (it’s known and even my mom wishes we could solve this mystery) my dad has a child he fathered at 18 or so and HE didn’t even know. I would give anything to know my older half sibling. Have done Ancestry DNA just in case, no matches ever surfaced, though.
My auntie (non blood related) and her daughter is currently living at my blood aunties house because the house is so hoarded and dirty that there is an infestation of rats and they chewed through the electrical wires. The non blood related aunties brother also allegedly fucks his teddy bear, there was ‘evidence’ that was found
My mom’s family is an entire disaster. My favorite family drama was finding out that my great uncle had gotten their Amish cleaning girl pregnant and she had a baby and when that baby grew up, she searched for her family, and now my mom has an Amish cousin. They’re pen pals and my mom even went to visit her. So it turned out cute in the end but the whole family was in uproar for a minute.
My best friend’s family has it way worse, when we were in our early 20s we had a super fun revelation that her great grandpa was an actual Nazi soldier…