A VERY Serious Question

[Misty_Morning]

I have always been fascinated with genealogy. Some of my family lines have been traced back hundreds of years.

I love thinking and reading about times past.

About 15 years ago I stumbled unto something rather disturbing and it has haunted me since.

In the early 1800's, some of my ancestors relatives were murdered. Not just some....but the entire family. I have read a few accounts from documents.

It was western North Carolina in the very early 1800's. A family of 7 that were murdered and whose bodies were apparently ripped apart. The carnage was hideous.

I have wanted to write about this and yet, how do I?

Other than some old documents...I have nothing to go on.

It's more than just a murder mystery to me. This was my family.

Sometimes I sit and wonder what it was that could have lead to the horrible event. But I also know that if I try to write something that encludes other families living around the area at the time (and now)...I may treading on some serious legal grounds.

To me...it is THE ultimate unsolved crime.


And I dunno...maybe they are still seeking justice. MAYBE...SOMEDAY...their lives and their deaths can be resolved.


So....when you only have a handful of facts to go on from so long ago.....how do you proceed without getting onto trouble in the present day?

 

[starrkers]

Are you trying to write a factual account, or a fiction story based on what you know?

I think if you put a disclaimer at the beginning, that the story is a work of fiction based on historical facts.

 

[JagFarlane]

Are you trying to write a factual account, or a fiction story based on what you know?

I think if you put a disclaimer at the beginning, that the story is a work of fiction based on historical facts.

Also if you're writing a work of fiction you can change the names of the families in the area.

However, it does sound more like you're trying to write a factual account, if so remember footnotes and a bibliography.

 

[impressive]

So....when you only have a handful of facts to go on from so long ago.....how do you proceed without getting onto trouble in the present day?

I'm doing something similar, although without the crime aspect. I found a branch in my family tree that just screams THERE'S A STORY HERE!!! I have no way to prove that what I'm writing is indeed what happened, but it sure fits the documented series of events.

There's a rather active genealogical society around this surname, so I'm hoping when it's published, I don't bring their wrath upon me. *eep*

Regardless, it's fiction.

Write it, Misty. Get it OUT, then decide what to do with it.

 

[oggbashan]

Geneaology brings out the family skeletons.

Some are better left buried.

One of my wife's great-uncles murdered his wife. He died in prison in the 1970s. That's too close to home.

One of my friends has two ancestors who were executed for treason. They were on opposing sides but both chose the wrong cause at the wrong time. I think he's inherited their lack of judgement. He voted for Ken Livingstone to continue as Mayor of London...

Og

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

MISTY

I had a similar experience.

The bottomline is you have to do exhaustive research until you become an authority of your topic.

I uncovered many old stories, including a few that are well known locally, but the facts are very different from the mythology. And you do uncover some embarrassing facts.

One of my ancestors was involved in a duel at Tallahassee in 1836. There are 3 accounts of the event, and all of them are seriously flawed. I collected information from the old newspapers, old magazines, official documents from West Point, and found a diary with an eye-witness account of the event that provoked the gunfight.

I've done this with several other events. However obscure the event was, records exist, and you can piece the story together from the fragments.

As for legal trouble. Every legal action requires a victim. You cannot be a victim if youre deceased.

 

[3113]

Sometimes I sit and wonder what it was that could have lead to the horrible event. But I also know that if I try to write something that encludes other families living around the area at the time (and now)...I may treading on some serious legal grounds.

Maybe I'm confused here but...What legal grounds? You can't libel the dead. I mean, really. Never mind "serious" legal grounds, I can't think of ANY legal grounds. If that's what's stopping you toss it out the window. You're free and clear.

Truman Capote wrote up In Cold Blood about a murder of an entire family that had JUST happened. It wasn't 100 years ago, it was right then and there in the newspaper, absolutely current. Exactly the sort of story you seem to want to write--a cross between reality and fiction. He created a pretty good book from it, with no "serious legal issues."

So why are you worried about writing up a story of a murder that happened over 100 years ago? I mean, come on. People write up accounts of terrible, real events that happened back in the day all the time, and they present unflattering (if real) portrayals of real people that sometimes relatives don't like and, more often, relatives don't care about or agree "that's true enough." But no one gets into legal trouble over such stories unless the people you write unflattering things about are alive and well to sue.

Do the research and write it. A murder like that undoubtedly has more information about it somewhere--more newspaper accounts and such. Find them and write your own In Cold Blood. And stop putting the cart before the horse. Don't worry about whether you're going to step on any toes before you've written something to do the stepping.

 

[MagicaPractica]

Misty,

You might check out what is available for research resources through your local library. With a library card, people can get free access to some amazing recources online through ours. Ancestry.com and the entire online digitally photographed archive of the New York Times, for a start. I would say a vacation to the area to look at the local historical society's materials, or even just call the local historian for the area, is in order. You should find there is at least a county historian.

I find this stuff fascinating too. Love the Torie O'Shea mysteries by Rhett (MacPherson?).

 

[Recidiva]

I have a cousin who is fascinated with genealogy. During a family reunion she gave us a rundown.

One of my ancestors died in a war - from heat stroke.

Another was a criminal, which is how she found the records.

Of interest, she had the option while in Salt Lake City to have our entire ancestral line christened as Mormons...not required, but Mormons are good at genealogy because they believe that everyone has to be christened as Mormons before something good happens (you note my understanding of the facts are vague here...)

We're related to Charlotte Cushman, a renowned actress in the 1800 somethings.

We're related to the Stuart royal line in Scotland and have a right to stay at a castle and wear a tartan and such. I'm not sure what my stance is on haggis, it might take a castle to get me to try some.

 

[Tarakin]

Family skeletons? Being german I have discovered that nearly every family genealogy from here has a strange gap from 1933 to 1945. Wonder how that came...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

RECIDIVA

I'm a Stuart, too.

MISTY

I have two mysteries I'm researching. I suspect a 4th great grandmother was black; that is, probably Quadroon or Octaroon. Her antecdents are unknown though I have a ton of circumstantial facts. I have a portrait of her husband, who is very fair complected. But their kids have some definite African traits, and the traits are dominant thru the next few generations.

Another mystery is the murder of an Octaroon woman who was the daughter of an ancestor's brother. She came to Tallahassee from New Orleans after her father died, to collect her inheritance. A white man raped and murdered her. Her white kin hanged the man.

 

[Recidiva]

I don't think you can really manage to do a factual account - but you can take some facts and do a historical and emotional editorial with your perspective.

 

[3113]

Of interest, she had the option while in Salt Lake City to have our entire ancestral line christened as Mormons...not required, but Mormons are good at genealogy because they believe that everyone has to be christened as Mormons before something good happens

The belief is that you can retroactively send people to heaven this way. If you're not Mormon, you don't get into heaven--and that's very troubling to Mormons who want their entire families, including past generations, to be together and reunited in Heaven. So what if you lived and died before there were Mormons? Or what if you were a relative who was not a Mormon? Your Mormon descendants need not fret about not having you at the heavenly family reunion, the church allows them to retroactively baptize you and anyone else who was never (or could not be) a Mormon.

It's like making sure everyone gets invited to the picnic.

 

[Recidiva]

The belief is that you can retroactively send people to heaven this way. If you're not Mormon, you don't get into heaven--and that's very troubling to Mormons who want their entire families, including past generations, to be together and reunited in Heaven. So what if you lived and died before there were Mormons? Or what if you were a relative who was not a Mormon? Your Mormon descendants need not fret about not having you at the heavenly family reunion, the church allows them to retroactively baptize you and anyone else who was never (or could not be) a Mormon.

It's like making sure everyone gets invited to the picnic.

That's a cool and inviting idea in one way. Very Mormon community focus.

To my cousin though, her eyes bugged out at the idea of our very conservative Creole Southern relatives being retroactively dubbed Mormon.

Kinda funny.

I'm fine with it. As long as I can be other stuff too, why not?

 

[buxxxom]

You might also contact the library where the events you speak of took place, some have lots of local history resources. Some items won't be loaned out, but through an inter-library type loan, you might get your hands on some valuable info. I'm in NC, too, and if I can be of any assistance, I'll be glad to help in any way.

 

[MagicaPractica]

Family skeletons? Being german I have discovered that nearly every family genealogy from here has a strange gap from 1933 to 1945. Wonder how that came...

No kidding. Half my family is from Poland, several of my grandfather's siblings just disappeared during that time. I doubt there's any way to find out what happened to them.

 

[3113]

No kidding. Half my family is from Poland, several of my grandfather's siblings just disappeared during that time. I doubt there's any way to find out what happened to them.

Takes going to Poland to do it. I had a relative who decided to do a family tree, and this was my branch of the family that was all from Poland and many had "disappeared," during that time. He wanted the details and he got them (where and when they died), but getting permission to look at those records wasn't easy. He had to bribe officials and everything.

But what Tarakin's talking about is far more interesting. Being on the other side of the fence (?), his family decided to deliberately obscure what great-grandaddy did in the war; he didn't just "lose" track of them.

 

[oggbashan]

No kidding. Half my family is from Poland, several of my grandfather's siblings just disappeared during that time. I doubt there's any way to find out what happened to them.

My wife's great-great-grandfather fled what is now Poland, then part of Prussia, in 1846 just after the bloody repression of a failed revolution. He and his wife took two boys aged under 5 and travelled only with the clothes they were wearing. The family tradition is that he had been an officer in the Prussian Army.

The more we research it seems likely that he was either 1) a non-com in the Prussian Army and deserted to avoid killing fellow Poles and/or 2) actively involved in the revolution.

The records for that area were taken to Germany and/or destroyed during 1939/45.

His grandsons changed their surname when they enlisted in the British Army. That made tracing the family difficult and would have been impossible except for a great-aunt who knew the details of the name change.

Poland has been fought over for centuries. Trying to trace Polish ancestors who lived in a country that changed size, shape, ownership and language is hard.

Og

 

[drksideofthemoon]

My wife's great-great-grandfather fled what is now Poland, then part of Prussia, in 1846 just after the bloody repression of a failed revolution. He and his wife took two boys aged under 5 and travelled only with the clothes they were wearing. The family tradition is that he had been an officer in the Prussian Army.

The more we research it seems likely that he was either 1) a non-com in the Prussian Army and deserted to avoid killing fellow Poles and/or 2) actively involved in the revolution.

The records for that area were taken to Germany and/or destroyed during 1939/45.

His grandsons changed their surname when they enlisted in the British Army. That made tracing the family difficult and would have been impossible except for a great-aunt who knew the details of the name change.

Poland has been fought over for centuries. Trying to trace Polish ancestors who lived in a country that changed size, shape, ownership and language is hard.

Og

I much the same problem, my paternal grandmother's family was from Kiev, and fled the Ukraine for Canada during the Marxist revolution. Other than what my great-grandmother wrote down, there's absolutely nothing left. I don't know if the communists destroyed the records after coming to power, or if they were destroyed during WWII.

The other problem was that they anglicized their name upon entry to Canada, and I've seen three different spellings to their orignal name, one in the Cyrillic alphabet, and two in the Roman alphabet.

 

[freshface]

Takes going to Poland to do it. I had a relative who decided to do a family tree, and this was my branch of the family that was all from Poland and many had "disappeared," during that time. He wanted the details and he got them (where and when they died), but getting permission to look at those records wasn't easy. He had to bribe officials and everything.

But what Tarakin's talking about is far more interesting. Being on the other side of the fence (?), his family decided to deliberately obscure what great-grandaddy did in the war; he didn't just "lose" track of them.

My family's German cousins all disappeared during that time. My great-uncle was a translator for Pershing and found them after the first war. They corresponded until 1941. When he went back after the second war to find them, they had all vanished. The records in Germany are by town and we don't know the name of the town now, only that it was in Hessen.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I can't do geneology beyond me parents and grandparents on one side. The rest were rascals and prolly got hanged.

Although me grandfather's father was in the lumber business and made millions. Unfortunately (or maybe no) he willed it all to the City of Spokane when he died during World War I. It's a long story.

 

[Weird Harold]

Geneaology brings out the family skeletons.

Some are better left buried.

My great-great aunt commissioned a geneology for my grandmother as a wedding gift -- when it was completed, she had it destroyed with the comment that it contained "more outlaws than inlaws."

I've always pretty much expected that outcome from serious geneology searches.

As to writing a "Historical Fiction" about the demise of long lost relatives, my only concern would be in making sure it could never be mistaken for a factual account by future geneologists by clearly documenting the factual sources used.

 

[JagFarlane]

His grandsons changed their surname when they enlisted in the British Army. That made tracing the family difficult and would have been impossible except for a great-aunt who knew the details of the name change.

Og

-nods- sometimes things like that happen...and you don't realize it in the family. For example, my grandmother on my dads side, she told everyone that her family came from Poland. Only was it after my dad was having a conversation with someone else, and they asked the surname, did he come to the realization the surname is British, not Polish. Everyone had just believed her, and considering my great-grandmother had disowned her, there was no way to verify it [actually my great-grandmother outlived her...we had to inform her of her daughters death via mail when we found the letters she had secretly traded with her mother all those years]

 

[WRJames]

My wife's great-great-grandfather fled what is now Poland, then part of Prussia, in 1846 just after the bloody repression of a failed revolution. He and his wife took two boys aged under 5 and travelled only with the clothes they were wearing. The family tradition is that he had been an officer in the Prussian Army.

The more we research it seems likely that he was either 1) a non-com in the Prussian Army and deserted to avoid killing fellow Poles and/or 2) actively involved in the revolution.

The records for that area were taken to Germany and/or destroyed during 1939/45.

His grandsons changed their surname when they enlisted in the British Army. That made tracing the family difficult and would have been impossible except for a great-aunt who knew the details of the name change.

Poland has been fought over for centuries. Trying to trace Polish ancestors who lived in a country that changed size, shape, ownership and language is hard.

Og

Some of my mother's family came to this country from southern Germany about the same time -- the story is that one of the daughters in the family was caught reading a German Bible (apparently they were from a Catholic part of Germany). She got in so much trouble that the whole family migrated -- and turned Lutheran. At least that is the legend.

They were also, according to family tradition, minor nobility, so it may have had more to do with being pushed out by consolidation of the German nation state. One of my mother's cousins was a US Army officer who was part of the postwar occupation of Germany -- he became obessed with locating the ancestral family castle and reclaiming it -- as late as the late fifties he was still writing to the rest of the family attempting to raise funds for this venture.

 

[OzoneRed]

My father told me that my great great grandfather was murdered at the age of three. I'm embarassed to think how many years it took me to realize that he was joking.

He also claimed to be descended from Baron Munchausen. If you knew my father, you just might believe that one.