Tweet on Family History Initiates Discussion on War & Migration

Anecdotes that emerged ranged from poignant to creepy and unbelievable.

The Indian subcontinent has experienced many wars and migrations and as an inhabitant of this diverse part of the world, one may not be entirely unfamiliar with long and complicated family histories. We all have numerous anecdotes to share!

A Twitter thread that invited responses for a “a cool bit of family history” has initiated a discussion on Twitter about war and migrations in a world where borders are burning topics of debate.

What’s a cool bit of family history you know? Can be family of origin of family of choosing.

— Amanda Deibert 🏳️‍🌈 (@amandadeibert) May 24, 2019

Anecdotes that emerged in reply to this tweet ranged from poignant to creepy and unbelievable.

Check out some of the responses below.

After my mom and dad passed 2 years ago, we found a box of letters from my Dad to my Mom spanning 30 yrs. He was an international banker. One of the letters contained a lot more details of that weekend than he ever shared with us. 😊 He and Mr. Steinbeck had a lot of fun!

— MomsThoughts™ (@MomsThoughts) May 25, 2019

My family was Knighted by King Charles the 1st, if i wasn’t gay and i married a man i could go to Wales and claim a seat as a baroness.

— Spencer Madison (@Qu33rQu33ry) May 24, 2019

I have a Portuguese ancestor who had so much sex she was thought to be a witch but there was an earthquake at the exact moment she was due to be burned so they set her free and she LOL’d off to South America like a boss, where she hopefully continued her sensual reign of terror.

— Emily Andras (@emtothea) May 25, 2019

There was an entire family with the exact same names as my mother and her sisters and her parents living a few miles from them and a couple days after she found out and asked them about it, they disappeared.

— rachel kiley (@rachelkiley) May 24, 2019

My great-great-great-grandfather was out plowing the fields. The day winds down, he puts the horse in the stable, puts away his tools, comes into the house.

"I'm going upstairs to die now," he said, retired upstairs, laid down and died.

— Sean Kelly (@StorySlug) May 24, 2019

My dad's girlfriend was descended from one of the Salem witches. She actually met a descendent of the man who ordered her executed.

— Will Ruddock (@will_ruddockHMB) May 25, 2019

My great-grandmother was licensed as a private detective in New York in 1968. She was a divorced Arab American Muslim woman in her late 50s when she accomplished this. https://t.co/XCVEKlJETt pic.twitter.com/bU2cNwK4Zk

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) May 26, 2019

Of World Wars and Narrow Escapes

There were some interesting World War family stories.

My great grandfather was a tailor living in Nazi occupied Poland. He was put in a camp and tasked with making uniforms. Over the course of time, he secretly made himself one, put it on, left the camp, got his family, and came to the US.

— Nathaniel Cohen (@nattycoh) May 26, 2019

My French grand-father spent 4 years fighting during WWI, and he got really bored. He took the used bullets and shells and moulded it, and we stil have a tiny tea set for dolls from war trenches

— Aline Robert (@AlineRobert_) May 26, 2019

My Grandma was a WW2 nurse from a small South Carolina mill town. She loved my grandfather to death, but she told him from the start that if he ever laid a hand on her, he better make it worth it because that would be the last time he ever did so. Needless to say, he never did!

— J (@jstocks724) May 25, 2019

My great grand-uncle burned literally an entire house down full of family history, documents and items to avoid our recently emigrated family from getting sent back to Germany to die in the 30s. So all my family's history abruptly stops at that moment. It was for the best

— jessica a. m. 🌼🌼🌼 (@my2k) May 24, 2019

Of Migrations and Identities

Then those about migrations and identities.

My Mexican born MD father helped create the cochlear implant. It was his passion that made him leave Mexico & come to the United States. Arriving in Texas by bus he was faced with a decision that would mark him forever. Would he go to the Negro bathroom or the white one?

— Maria Hinojosa (@Maria_Hinojosa) May 26, 2019

My grandfather had to convince his parents to let him go to school because it was run by white colonizers and they naturally didn't trust them. He had to still do his farm chores on top of walking to school, doing homework.

He got his bachelor's in Canada and returned to Kenya

— Wagatwe Wanjuki 🇰🇪 (@wagatwe) May 25, 2019

My Paternal 3x Great Grandparents were free settlers to South Australia. Were married here and, according to records, came on the same ship with their families, so might have met during the journey. Not all were convicts, just colonialist invaders ;)

— A R Collins (@ar_collins) May 25, 2019

The creator of the thread, Amanda Deibert, responded with the following tweet, after her initial tweet received a large number of responses.

My fav things about this thread so far have been at least a handful of people discovering they are related to one another on the thread and also one man tweeting about his great uncle and a historian having a very rare photo of said great uncle he had never seen.

— Amanda Deibert 🏳️‍🌈 (@amandadeibert) May 26, 2019

“My fav things about this thread so far have been at least a handful of people discovering they are related to one another on the thread... (sic),” Deibert wrote on Twitter.