At this point, it's starting to look like none of us have a normal, run-of-the-mill family history.
With all of the wars, conflicts, trends, and styles that have occurred, everyone has a tie to something interesting in the past.
Take Gary's family, for example. There's some evidence that his ancestors had ties to the Nazi Party. Yep. All of our jokes about him being super German are starting to look pretty accurate. He also found a picture of a severed head. Ummm...
How about Producer Nick's family? His grandpa's farm in Austria was raided by Nazis. Who knows, maybe a Hoffmann was among those men.
Board Op Blake's family history isn't proven to be very cool, but if you listen to his grandpa (who is quite the "storyteller") he is a distant relative of the outlaw Jesse James. You probably (definitely) shouldn't bet on that being true, but it's a cool story to go along with.
What about you? Have you find any cool stuff or learned some interesting things about your family's past?
A thread was started on Mumsnet that discussed this very thing, finding heirlooms and discovering crazy things about your family history, and some of the responses were great.
There were love (/lust) affairs...
"getoffthathistoricrelic Fri 30-Mar-18 08:52:36
When my great grandfather died we found photos of the carer, in the sheltered housing, he’d been having an affair with. He was in his 90s and she looked to be in her late 30s. He’d always been fond of the ladies and we suspect he strung a line about money. There was none."
"Linus33 Fri 30-Mar-18 09:12:43
After my mum died and we were clearing her house, we found 100s of love letters from a 'friend' (obvs more than that) who at the time was in prison for a financial misdemeanour. He wrote daily, all stamped with a prison stamp, with an outpouring of love.This man was an old bf of mum's who she went out with before she married my dad. When mum and dad divorced they must have hooked up again. I'm not sure what happened but they didn't get together when he came out of prison."
"UtterlyDesperate Fri 30-Mar-18 09:13:53
Polaroids with DF wearing stockings and leather, in restraints The 70s have a lot to answer for"
Old military stuff...
"Jewelofthenile Fri 30-Mar-18 09:15:16
A fully working WW 2 maching gun, with a box of ammunition. Found in my Great Grandfather's shed. He was a Sargeant in the British Army during WW 2 so I assume he kept it as a "momento". That was an interesting phone call to our local police!"
"metalmum15 Fri 30-Mar-18 08:25:31
A hand grenade. With the pin still in."
And some very...well...unique items...
"SheepyFun Fri 30-Mar-18 09:51:00
We found a couple of sets of false teeth when clearing out a close relative's house. But the deceased had their own teeth. Who the false teeth belonged to remains a mystery......."
Read the full story at Daily Mail