October 4, 2024
Recently I’ve heard several genealogists bemoan the fact that their ancestors are boring. These folks say their ancestors didn’t do anything exciting. They were born, married, had children, and died. Genealogists want a few “Black Sheep Ancestors”- those characters that bent the rules and broke the laws and were anything but boring.
I can understand the appeal of some of these bad boy and girl ancestors. Bad boys and girls typically generated more records than their more respectable siblings. Newspaper articles and court records often detail their escapades. Naturally, an intrepid genealogist wants to claim some of these characters.
Luckily, outrageous ancestors aren’t hard to find. How many of your ancestors had their first child after less than nine months of marriage? I’ll bet there are at least a few. Some probably weren’t even married when that first child arrived. Have you tried to figure out the circumstances of that “irregular” birth?
Divorces were considered scandalous in earlier eras. Although rare in earlier days, divorces did occur. In eras with less concern for privacy, they often involved newspaper write-ups. These were full of salacious details. If you find a woman listed as widowed on a census when you know her husband was still alive, you might suspect a divorce. Divorce was considered shameful, and women, especially, often tried to hide it.
Some facets of life in earlier eras may push an ancestor into the black sheep category, even though they were considered respectable in their day. Slavery is one of these areas. It’s hard not to be disturbed by a slave-owning ancestor, but most people before the Civil War considered it normal. That’s true of Northerners as well as Southerners.
Crimes such as robbery and murder are fun to find on the family tree, but it’s important to remember they were serious when they occurred. My fourth great grandfather Bengt Hendrick Rosendahl is an example. Bengt committed murder in 1769. He was an alcoholic and an ugly drunk. He abused his wife and children. One day he and a tenant on his farm got into an argument. Bengt stormed back to his house for a gun, returned and shot the tenant. He was found guilty and beheaded for his crime.
Since it was a horrific and unusual crime at the time, there were lots of records about Bengt’s crime and his trial. As my family and I discovered each new grisly detail, we were shocked that someone in our family tree could have done this. However, it didn’t affect us personally. Bengt’s descendants were all law-abiding, responsible members of society. None of them killed anyone. That makes it easy for the genealogists in our generation to tell Bengt’s story in a lighthearted manner. It feels too long ago to matter today.
I suspect that the difference between a fun black sheep story and a life-altering tragic story is time. My fourth great grandfather was a murderer, and my family considers it a good story. If my grandfather had done the same thing, it might seem more sensitive. It would be harder to tell my black sheep story and laugh about it.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society