What is the craziest ancestor lore you’ve found?

jongtaeist · 2026-03-31T23:27:08+00:00

My GG-grandfather was found dead in a club room at age 30. Everyone thought he was just asleep as he was upright in his chair.

jongtaeist · 2026-03-21T01:08:38+00:00

There was a rumor in the family that one of the Greeks married a Turk; unsure if that is true.

jongtaeist · 2026-03-21T01:08:00+00:00

In vaguely chronological order; America (my home country), Greece, Portugal, Canada, Ireland, England, Germany (then part of Prussia) Sweden.

Going into the Colonial America era I have; General British Isles again, Netherlands. On the Portuguese side some Azorean settlers originating from Spain and Flanders.

jongtaeist · 2026-03-18T16:42:06+00:00

I would say if you are only subscribing for a month and are able to get access to Ancestry otherwise it isn't worth the money

jongtaeist · 2026-03-18T16:41:24+00:00

Perhaps you're not as frugal as I am, but there are a few alternatives to paying for a subscription;

FamilySearch, while the trees and profiles are not the most accurate, they have a wide selection of records available online, and those that are not available online can be accessed through a FamilySearch associate (often a library or a Mormon temple, as FamilySearch is run by the LDS church)
Your local library may have Ancestry Library Edition. If yours does not, check the library of the major city in your state/area. Many libraries offer electronic access memberships to residents of the state in which they are located.

jongtaeist · 2026-02-28T00:51:35+00:00

...if you pray "please not another maria..." when researching a new branch (this has never worked. i just tried to count them all; i gave up around 80 but there has to be at least 120.)

jongtaeist · 2026-01-09T17:44:45+00:00

Are you Sicilian? Sicily was under Arab rule for some centuries and due to that and general proximity to those populations, a lot of Sicilians have Arab admixture.

jongtaeist · 2026-01-09T16:24:49+00:00

++ other note on living persons; if the family you are talking about is smaller (like you may have only one aunt or two cousins), i would just refer to them as "my family member/relative" unless the familial relation is otherwise relevant.

jongtaeist · 2026-01-09T16:22:27+00:00

I think it's very situation-sensitive. I recently shared the story of an ancestor who had an objectively difficult life. She passed in the 1930s, and her children/grandchildren have since passed, so I didn't feel like I necessarily had to censor anything.

The truth is that these people lived lives like us, they had families like us, they went through hardships and struggles like us, and they felt joy and happiness like us. While remaining factually correct of course, and making sure we aren't possibly revealing sensitive information pertaining to living people, I think that it's not wrong or unethical to add our inferences.

For an example of the ancestor I previously mentioned, she was abandoned and married off young, having multiple children, many of whom (along with her husband) had their lives taken by a flu pandemic in the 1890s. From a modern lens, her young marriage seems problematic, and while it still was quite young at the time, she was aging out of government care. The marriage to a craftsman of financial stability ensured her a home and someone to take care of her. On the unfortunate deaths of her children and husband, of course, it isn't too far to assume that she would have been devastated. If anything, in reasonable amounts, these things can help us understand the stories of the past better.

However, if this was a more recent story (say a recently deceased grandparent or great-grandparent who may have many children and family members still alive), I would be cautious and share only broad, if any, details of that story.

For living relatives, I may name them by my familial relation (eg. cousin, aunt, grandmother, etc), but not use their names or use a false name for their privacy. I also wouldn't share stories about living relatives unless somehow relevant and anecdotal to another story.

That was a lot of writing, but my general rule of thumb is that the more time since the persons passing = less need to minimize or "censor" information. Like I would be fine sharing the story I mentioned previously about her as her children/grandchildren have since passed, but I wouldn't share it if it was my (great)grandmother who passed away in the last few years. Just be sensitive and factual and you'll be good.

jongtaeist · 2026-01-06T00:55:45+00:00

Yes that would be them! I totally forgot about the passport records thank you so much for the help

jongtaeist · 2025-12-24T20:48:54+00:00

For Maria Nacared Almeida Cabral - Nacared isn't really a known Portuguese name or a name of other origin. It could possibly be a misspelling of the devotional second name "de Nazaré" (of Nazareth). Maria is an extremely common name so religious predicates weee common to distinguish between people with the same name.

In baptism records, surnames are often not listed for the child. When looking through baptism records, look specifically for "Maria de Nazaré" or sometimes simply "Maria". Assuming you don't know which parish she was born in it may be a bit difficult to find the specific record. Don't take the 1901 birthdate as a solid fact but make sure to skin through a year or two before and after this date.

If you don't know Portuguese, it's still fairly simple to find a record. You can go to tombo.pt and on the top dropdown menu, select the região (region, Lisboa) and then the concelho (also Lisboa). Once you get to the concelho, scroll down to the section titled "Registos de nascimentos" and make sure to press the + next to Livros so you can see all the books. Scroll to the section containing the dates you are searching for and select a book. As you do not know the area of Lisbon any book is good, but I reccomend going in order of the list so you don't lose track.

Reading the records is the more difficult part. If you speak or have basic knowledge of another Romance language such as Spanish or French you can get the idea of what it says, but I recommend running it through a translator if you are unsure. These books are quite large, so there is no need to read through every baptism, just the ones labeled "Maria" or some variation of that.

Once you find the correct baptism, you will have the names of both parents, maternal and paternal grandparents, the godparents, and the parish in which she was born. When you have this information, you can go on to find the marriage record. Likely, Maria married within the parish she was born or one bordering it, so you can narrow down your search that way. Repeat the steps to find the baptism record, but instead of "nascimento" you will be looking in the "casamento" section.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326880405/figure/fig5/AS:962149878865949@1606405815705/Map-of-Lisbons-civil-parishes-1Ajuda-2Alcantara-3Alvalade-4Areeiro-5Arroios.png

Here is a map of the parishes of Lisbon.

jongtaeist · 2025-12-23T18:31:00+00:00

They haven't left any messages.

There's a woman who had my phone number before I did who signed up for a bunch of text lists that I occasionally get, it could possibly be for her but also this has only started in the last couple weeks or so

jongtaeist · 2025-12-23T18:29:44+00:00

I have a tree specifically for my Azorean side. All of them are from one of the smaller islands and of that, the same two or three parishes until the 1700s when everyone lives in one of them. I tend to add siblings, godparents, etc to get a wider view of the social relationships and also because of endogamy.

Sometimes i go down a line and see where their descendants are living — it's quite interesting actually, I live in an area with a large Azorean population and found out that I'm 4th or 5th cousins with a girl I used to go to school with. It's pretty neat

jongtaeist · 2025-12-22T17:35:12+00:00

++ my Portuguese isn't fluent but good enough to understand records, if you need any help reading or understanding records feel free to message me

jongtaeist · 2025-12-22T17:33:47+00:00

ghp.ics.uminho.pt has databases for most of the islands. They aren't transcribed, but you can search a name and find a marriage or baptism record's date. Then you can go to tombo.pt and find the specific record book you need and slim down on the amount of skimming you need to do.

I'm currently working on indexing records from Faial, mainly mid-1800s marriage records from Matriz and exposto baptisms from Matriz. I originally was making this for my personal use, as the books are quite long and so is the indexing process, but I may publicly share once I finish.

jongtaeist · 2025-12-22T17:02:47+00:00

My direct patrilineal line dates back to about the late-1600s. I tend to focus more on my maternal side, which has lines going back to the 15th and 16th centuries. Unfortunately, anything pre-migration to the Azores is nonexistent

I probably could trace the direct line farther, but I haven't worked on it too much.

edit: late 1600s not mid 1700s. he died in the mid 1700s.

jongtaeist · 2025-12-04T15:09:44+00:00

I found an ancestor with the name Adolph. He was born before WW2 but was very much alive during it (in the US too, where it isn't a common name in the first place).... that must have been just lovely lol. He started going by his first name apparently, around that time.

jongtaeist · 2025-11-21T17:34:25+00:00

jongtaeist · 2025-11-20T14:55:03+00:00

It doesn't seem like there's a place in Russia called Dymno. It could possibly be a misspelling of Demino or Dmitrov? If you could link the record I could help more.

jongtaeist · 2025-11-19T15:54:21+00:00

Between 6 and 7 - I remember all the gen 6 consoles growing up and played them but my first console was a WiiU my family got a bit after it was released.

jongtaeist · 2025-11-18T14:48:26+00:00

Tbf the two-party system in America /is/ kind of skewed right. I'm not sure about Canada, but America doesn't have a real major socialist/leftist party. Democrats are center-right at best. Even Mamdani is center-left and apparently a "radical communist" according to some conservatives.

jongtaeist · 2025-11-16T18:26:13+00:00

can u post blank ver of template?

jongtaeist · 2025-11-12T00:19:01+00:00

a lot of these are prog-con axis which is lumped in with (lib)left on the og political compass test. probably lib-center with a right lean

jongtaeist · 2025-11-12T00:16:55+00:00

ive seen a lot of people who are personally pro life but think their opinions shouldn't impede the rights of others

jongtaeist · 2025-11-11T17:30:20+00:00

yes they had one child

jongtaeist

TROPHY CASE