Troublemaker
What do family splits in the past tell us about our own?
Feuds, squabbles, wars, court battles.
As a society, we’ve been fascinated with criminals and black sheep for centuries. The original Greek tragedies and comedies had it, the bible is full of it, and Shakespeare wrote about it. It’s baked into our western psychology as the Oedipus Complex. If you don’t agree, I have two words, SOAP OPERA.
For all we know, the original cave paintings in France featured some family drama. These bulls look pretty angry to me!
Unlike soap operas, there are no clear villians or victims in real family feuds. There is no right or wrong, and it doesn’t really matter who started what because everyone is feuding over perceptions and perceived right and wrong rather than on working on repair. Most times it goes even deeper than that, with shifting alliances over decades, sometimes ending in resolution and sometimes in worsened feud. Sadly, everyone in the family is affected.
What is it about family conflict that has us all so engrossed? Why are Bonnie and Clyde remembered instead of John Nance Garner? Why do we know more about Charles Manson and the orange dictator than we do about George Washington?
As any family historian knows, people have been people as long as we have been people, so how do we use this to help us understand the lives or our ancestors? Can those breaks along family lines help us understand the cracks in our family foundations today? What was happening around them that might have given cause to the rift?
The fascination with disaster benefits family historians. There are many more records of misdeeds than there are of happy family life. There are rare examples of “and this family was happy and prosperous from 1820-1824” primarily in small town newpapers and family histories.
Family tragedies provided the community gossip and can be found in newspaper articles court documents and if tragic enough even mentioned in small town histories. Sometimes those findings will solve a family mystery, such as finding a lost aunt or cousin in an “asylum” or a family migrating because they lost everything in a natural disaster.
While smaller issues, like the loss of a parent, poverty, petty crime, illegitimate or dead children and other tragedies may not have made the headlines, they can usually be discovered on a later page or in other documents such as guardianships.
I enjoy writing the story before the tragedy as well as after. The most interesting finds for me involve conflict in the family and how it evolved or was resolved. There are so many examples in my own family, some of which I’ve written about such as the bigamy committed by my 3rd great grandfather in my post “Between the Records”.
Conflicts in my family include bigamy, illegitimacy, bar room brawls, bootleggers on the lamb, hate fueled separations, and even at least one full blown blood feud among others. I find myself asking “Why?” with each discovered story. What could make sibling turn against sibling, parent against child? Before the tragedy, what led to the break? Power? Money? Fame? Corruption? Greed?
Sometimes I believe I have found the answer, as in the case of the bigamy above. However, most times I find myself baffled and so I return to the basic questions. What happened to the family and how did it change? Did it prosper or fall apart? Did the rebel(s) find what they wanted or needed? What happened to the children? How did the family members rebuild their lives if they were able to?
In trying to put the pieces together, the story comes into its own.
In a future post I will explore what made my Torie ancestor pit himself against kin to fight for the British? That decision forced him to later flee to Canada with his young family. Many years later he still received a proper portion of inheritance from his father although evidence would suggest they’d be apart for over a decade. I can’t wait to share that one!
Sometimes I feel like I should be writing a soap opera with all the drama in my family. What do you think? Do the troubles of your ancestors give you insight? Do you have any famous feuds in your family? Any famous black sheep? I’d love to hear about it!
It sounds like you have lots of interesting stories to investigate and write up in the future. I look forward to reading them!
Once the obsession with Acadian stories tamps down, I'd like to explore the kidnapped children in my family tree. A 14 y-o English lad captured in a French/Acadian raid on Newfoundland, a boy taken from a farm in Wells Maine and a girl taken captive in a raid on Deerfield MA during another French and English war. The question you raise -- what do the splits in the past tell us about our own? -- provocative. Need to mull and ponder it.