Genealogy Research: Trace Black Sheep Ancestors

My great aunt was the oldest-living relative on my father's side of the family, so I assumed she would be a wealth of handed-down stories. Quite the character, she had been married three times (Two of her husbands committed suicide). Aunt Jane, age 86, still wore all three bands on her wedding ring finger. When I asked her about the past, she told me, "It's none of your business."

Her younger sister, Pearl, age 82, was tons more cooperative. She insinuated there were a few skeletons buried, as to the vagueness of her sister's answers. "Don't you worry none about that old thing. She thinks everyone is after her money. I've got everything you need to know written down- let me get it."

My genealogist blood started racing, knowing I had hit the mother lode. Expecting her to bring out a gilded ancestry royalty chart recording my line back to A.D. 347. Aunt Pearl, RIP, brought in a clear sandwich bag with a small brown paper sack sealed inside. Years previous, her mother had written down all she knew of the family history on this brown paper bag and Pearl treasured it as it were gold.

Aunt Pearl eyed all my notebooks, taken everywhere with me, crammed with notes taken since I first got bitten by the genealogy bug at age sixteen during a high school project. She asked me seriously, "My brother, Moat, was killed on a fishing trip. Is there anyway you could find out the truth as to what really happened to him?'

A good source for criminal records, scandals and general mayhem in the South is the Georgia Black Book: Morbid, Macabre, & sometimes disgusting records of genealogical value. Not to be overlooked- Get Grandpa's FBI File.com for the wicked and the wayward branches of your family tree.

From 1717 to 1775: Fifty thousand English convicts chose deportation to the colonies for seven years rather than hang. You must give the prisoners some slack, convictions could be over stealing sheep, cutting down trees without permission, sending threatening letters or merely standing mute in front of ones 'betters.'

U.S. District and Circuit Court Records are held at the National Archives. www.archives.gov