Quote:
Originally posted by David_Hayward
[B] My aunt was enaged to a Canadian serviceman, and I think several others during the war! However, my late father-in-law made an American girl pregnant wheilst he was in the RAF in Canada, and she was on holiday from the States: Fred came back to England and refused all treaties from the girl's father to marry his daughter. I believe he had no choice as he had made my late mother-in-law pregnant so had to have a quickie wedding in '44! So my wife has a half-brother somewhere and presumably nieces and nephews as well as a myriad of Canadian cousins by her father's brother and his then wife who emigrated to Canada post-war.
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Aren't family histories amazing in all their little surprizing twists and turns off the attempted idealistic traditional courtship, engagement, marriage ways? Digging in the family's garden can find all sorts of roots we had no clue about
We humans, we do certainly make things hard and complicated for ourselves and others sometimes, eh?
Having said all that "in a laughing at ourselves way" pandora's box is a little rough on folks when it springs open to those unknowing, and out of the blue whammy. Hard especially on our elderly when attitudes and stigmas of "back then" are still part of their values today. Times were different "back then" and stigma hurt still feels fresh to some, decades after the facts. I have to respect the times and differences between the past and present. Things more open and accepting these days about so much ... but ... it's still so very hard and fresh for some to remember and talk about "old stuff". Painful and shameful often
We gotta be gentle as possible I think when it comes to tripping through the family tree when loaded with "stuff"
I know if I could back track, that I would definately handle some things differently in how I went about handling family. Learn as I go and through hindsight
Geneology has been a real learning curve for me, not just about family, but about all sorts of things, like learning more about the generations and the world through those times. Good stuff
