(09-11-2018 02:45 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(09-10-2018 11:22 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(09-10-2018 08:52 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(09-10-2018 10:05 AM)stinkfist Wrote:  moving, allergies, and comcrap...

Uh oh......Sheriff chasing you out the county Stinky?

lol....

There's a family that shares our family name that lives just across the river in the adjoining county. We never really had any dealings with them, never saw them at family reunions or anything, but ironically my Dad's family was from the same area, with his parents moving to our neck of the woods just after they got married when Poppa came back from WWII. I can recall my Great-Grandmother being asked a few times if they were any relation and she would always reply "That's the outlaw branch of the family" and everybody thinking it was just her way of trying to be funny. She was in her late 90's when she passed in the mid 80's and the last few years she would become creative with her stories if you catch my drift.

When my Great Aunt passed away her daughter asked my Aunt if she would like some of the family mementos since she is big into genealogy and of course my Aunt jumped all over the offer. She got a couple boxes of old pictures, newspaper clippings, etc and slowly over a few months went through everything when one day she called my Mom all excited. It seems that Maw-maw was right. She found a letter that my Great-great Grandmother wrote to my Great Uncle, Maw-maw's oldest brother, while he was at The Citadel telling the story about their cousins, That group that shares our name was chased out of our county in the 1880's by the Sheriff because of some disputes over stolen livestock and set up shop just across the river in the adjoining county. My Aunt says that the closest relation even at that time was second cousins and says the tone of the letter wasn't shame as much as relief that they were gone.

Times were different then I guess.

Yep, my father in law did a family search from Southwestern Tennessee and in his research found out that one of his family had been hanged for stealing a horse. BTW, do you know why so many people once referred to their cousins as 1st and 2nd and 3rd? It's because people didn't move very far from their birth places 150 years ago. You couldn't marry your 1st or 2nd cousins but you could marry a third cousin. The appellation of 2nd and 3rd cousins is still a small town thing. At least a more mobile society has broadened the gene pool!

There was a standing joke in a very small Georgia town I visited for business. The sheriff there ate in the same small family restaurant that I did and he was a very pleasant conversationalist with a good sense of humor. He asked me one day if my okra tasted funny. I tried it and it did. He said, "Yeah I think it's rancid grease." I said should we say something about it. He said, "No. Everyone here is related and it might cost me votes. You see son we don't have family trees here. We have family hedge rows!"