#my family history

[magicalbuttertarts]

Doing some family research, and looked up my Uncle's name.

Knew the story about how he poured gasoline all over himself, and his house. Had a stand-off with police before they tackled him.

He was charged with mischief. 🙄

Even the cops said it was a time bomb and he was charged with mischief.

[rivertigo]

my great grandpa maybe he chilled here in between delivering sugar beets

[flowerandblood]

For now, due to the break that @black-dread took, I also decided not to publish new chapters for now, but I have something different and quite interesting for you, because it actually sounds like a story taken from a fanfic from the 19th century and this is about my great-great-grandmother, Rozalia.

I devoted my master's thesis to her (I illustrated a book about her life story) and I have been dealing with her story for many years because… I still have no idea who the father of her children, and at the same time, my great-great-grandfather, was.

Rozalia was born in 1876 in Masovia, at that time under the Russian partition, into a family of agricultural workers (people hired by farmers or heirs to work in their fields).

In 1886, her father died, and in 1894 her mother married Jakub, who was 40 years her senior, probably to provide any living conditions for her children (Rozalia had two other siblings).

In 1896, Rozalia gave birth to her first child - daughter Stanisława. She is unmarried, in the documents there is no information about the child's father.

Usually, in such a situation, such a girl was immediately married off, but not Rozalia.

Rozalia gives birth to six more children: 1899 (Jacek), 1901 (Walenty), 1904 (Katarzyna), 1908 (Józef), 1913-1916 (Wacław), 1918 (Bolesław - my great-grandfather).

Rozalia dies in 1944 as an unmarried woman.

None of them had a father listed in the documents.

There were various rumors about who the father of her children was. My grandmother claimed that she overheard the adults talking about how this man was some kind of aristocrat.

But who?

For years I read parish and archive books, I found documents regarding the owners of the estate where Rozalia was born and the one where she later worked.

And nothing.

Everyone knew that Rozalia traveled to Prussia for work and that my great-grandfather was born in Bellshwitz.

However, no one from there matched the dates either, there were too many unknowns in the places where she was.

Me and my cousin took DNA tests and it turned out that we had a huge section of DNA in common with a German with whom I tried to link all of this with Bellshwitz, without success.

On Christmas, my grandmother and I called her cousin, Ignacy, son of Katarzyna, daughter of Rozalia, to wish him well. Even though I asked him many times to tell me about Rozalia, he maintained that he didn't remember anything.

During this conversation, when I spoke about her and this man again, and the fact that he was probably German, Ignacy said:

Yes, yes. We knew he had left and disappeared suddenly, but we didn't know where. When I joined the army, communist officers asked me: Why didn't you tell us that your grandfather emigrated to America? I replied: I had no idea about it myself.

I remember once, when I was still a little child, a handsome, elegantly dressed man came to our house, he didn't go inside, he noticed me playing with other children. He came up to us and asked which of us was named exactly like me. I told him it was me, and he held out his hand to me and said, "Greet your grandfather."

When I wanted to shake his hand, he put his hand under my mouth so that I could kiss it. I didn't want to do it and ran away. I never saw him again after that.

The situation he was talking about took place around 1936, probably whoever this man was, he left for America after the outbreak of World War II - the German aristocracy in these areas did not love Hitler.

I still don't know who this man is, but I hope that one day I will find out.

There are no photos of Rozalia, but there are photos of her daughter, Katarzyna, whom my grandmother said looked very much like her mother. Based on her descriptions, I took photos of myself as my great-great-grandmother, which I later used in the book as her portraits, which you can see at the top of this post.

[the-entity-down-the-street]

Ooooooooh I have feelings about this one. I come from a family of certifiable hicks from the backwoods of West-By-God, as my mama calls it. I didn't grow up there (I was in Florida pretty close to the Everglades), but three generations of Appalachian hillbilly flow through my veins, and I am sick of folks like my family being America's punchline. The way people look down on us fucked with my mama's self-esteem my whole life, because she was afraid of being seen as a stereotype. Being surprised that gays exist in the country is just another way to gawk at poor people like sideshow freaks, and only further isolates those of your own community who need it the most (because yeah, it ain't easy being trans in the country, and can be plenty dangerous too).

every month someone makes a post like “wow, I can’t believe there are gay rednecks. can’t believe there are gay people living in the rural Midwest or Deep South.” kill the classist in your brain

[deborabuerk-the-write-stuff]

The Legacy of Robert Burns and Auld Lang Syne

By DEBORA RAGLAND BUERK,Writer, editor, andsometimes family historian. The Write Stuff. "Should old acquaintance be forgot,and never brought to mind?Should old acquaintance be forgot,and auld lang syne?For auld lang syne, my dear,for auld lang syne,we'll take a cup of kindness yet,for auld lang syne." Auld Lang Syne. Auld Lang Syne is a Scottish song pronounced: [ˈɔːl(d) lɑŋˈsəin].…

[crowkip]

yeehaw, baby!

[kaahmbem]

legend has it that the young witch circe and the once beautiful nymph scylla shared a complicated past...

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

going through my old journals as part of therapy homework and i'm reading a section written in the emotional wreckage of a full-on breakdown when i get hit with this line:

There is never a satisfying answer to ‘Why didn’t they love me?’

like wow babe. good fucking point

[silvermoon424]

This is your daily reminder to archive your favorite fandom stuff!!!

I've been a voracious archivist/data hoarder ever since I first got access to a computer, and it's paid off more times than I can count. Just the other day I came across a PDF copy of an analysis post for one of my fandoms. The post was made on an old forum and is the most detailed and interesting analysis of a particular story element I've ever seen. Back in like 2012 I saved the post as a PDF, because even then I saved everything I liked.

Anyway, flash forward to 2025 and I decided to see if the URL included in the document was still live. I wasn't very surprised to see that the forum is long dead. However, even the Wayback Machine had no record of this thread. If I hadn't saved a copy of it way back when, I would have never, ever been able to read this analysis again!

The Internet Archive is sadly not infallible, especially when it comes to things like forum threads. You can do your part by manually saving things to the Wayback Machine, but I also recommend keeping your own archives. Aside from just saving pages as PDFs, I highly recommend a browser extension called SingleFile that lets you archive pages as HTML files.

[cassandragemini]

its so crazy that for the last 5 years a small but annoyingly vocal online group has been acting like mob movies of all things are pretentious and inaccessible cinema. yeah the godfather is kinda slow but these are movies about criminals who shoot people

[sephirajo]

Lol well found out how to check it and was "bet you don't care about all these other tragedies and scientists"

Mexican blood is on those bombs. Using my family's brains and then tossing us aside. Can't have a mexi work on the bombs after all. 🙄

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The most dangerous duel of all.

[1999ruth]

“Don't you want to dance, husband?”

- Mrs Afton's a divorce

That's a love story... You don't miss her ghost, do you?

Mrs Afton's wife ( Ballora Lady to ballerinas) by @chloesimaginationthings

Afton's wife in the flashback that is beautiful, my son and daughter left... She has not responded to anything with Mr. Afton to leave and she does not love you, that sad thing has happened 😔💔🩹 I'm not fine a okay okay

Dead a X twitter bye , away back a BlueSky and Instagram to hug 🫂❤️

[anishenanigans]

aand done!! This took forever, but it's the first time I've successfully finished one of these templates and it was a lot of fun :]

[deborabuerk-the-write-stuff]

The Legacy of Robert Burns and Auld Lang Syne

By DEBORA RAGLAND BUERK,Writer, editor, andsometimes family historian. The Write Stuff. "Should old acquaintance be forgot,and never brought to mind?Should old acquaintance be forgot,and auld lang syne?For auld lang syne, my dear,for auld lang syne,we'll take a cup of kindness yet,for auld lang syne." Auld Lang Syne. Auld Lang Syne is a Scottish song pronounced: [ˈɔːl(d) lɑŋˈsəin].…

[fictionadventurer]

I have to talk about Chester Arthur. His story makes me go crazy. A mediocre president from the 1880s who's completely forgotten today has one of the best redemption stories I've ever heard and I need to make people understand just how cool his story is.

So, like, he starts out as this idealist, okay? He's the son of an abolitionist minister and becomes famous as a New York lawyer who defends the North's version of Rosa Parks whose story desegregates New York City's trolley system.

Then he starts getting pulled into politics and becomes one of the grimiest pieces of the political machine. He wants money, power, prestige, and he gets it. He becomes the right-hand man of Roscoe Conkling, the most feared political boss in the nation, a guy who will throw his weight around and do the most ruthless things imaginable to keep his friends in power and destroy his enemies.

Because Arthur's this guy's top lackey, he gets to be Controller of the Port of New York--the best-paying political appointment in the country, because that port brings in, like, 70% of the federal government's funds in tariffs. He gets a huge salary plus a percentage of all the fines they levy on lawbreakers, and because he's not afraid to make up infractions to fine people over, he is absolutely raking in the dough. Making the rough equivalent of $1.3 million a year--absolutely insane amounts of money for a government position. He's spending ridiculous sums on clothes, buying huge amounts of alcohol and cigars to share with people as part of his job recruiting supporters to the party, going out nearly every night to wine and dine people as part of his work in the political machine. He's living the high life. Even when President Hayes pulls him from his position on suspicions of fraud, he's still living a great life of wealth, power, and prestige.

Then in 1880, his beloved wife dies. While he's out of town working for a political campaign. And he can't get back in time to say goodbye before she dies. Because he's a guy who has big emotions, it absolutely tears him up inside, especially because Nell resented how much his political work kept him away from home. He has huge regrets, but he just moves in with Roscoe Conkling and keeps working for the political machine.

And then he gets a chance to be vice president. The Republican Party has nominated James Garfield, a dark horse candidate who wants to reform the spoils system that has given Conking his power and gave Arthur his position as Port Controller. Conkling is pissed, and he controls New York, and since the party's not going to win the election without New York, they think that appointing Conkling's top lackey as vice-president will pacify him.

They're wrong--Conkling orders Arthur to refuse--but Arthur thinks this sounds like a great opportunity. The only political position he's ever held is Port Controller--a job he wasn't elected to and that he was pulled from in disgrace. Vice President is way more than he could ever have hoped for. It's a position with a lot of political pull and zero actual responsibilities. He'll get to spend four years living in up in Washington high society. It's the perfect job! Of course he accepts, and Conkling comes around when he figures out that he can use this to his advantage.

When Garfield becomes president, Arthur does everything he can to undermine him. He uses every dirty political trick he can think of to block everything that Garfield wants to do. He refuses to let the Senate elect a president pro tempore so he can stay there and influence every bill that comes through. He all but openly boasts of buying votes in the election. He's so much Conkling's lackey that he may as well be the henchman of a cartoon supervillain. On Conkling's orders, he drags one of Garfield's Cabinet members out of bed in the middle of the night--while the guy is ill--to drag him to Conkling's house so he can be forced to resign. He's just absolutely a thorn in the president's side, a henchman doing everything he can to maintain the corrupt spoils system.

Then in July 1881, when Arthur's in New York helping Conkling's campaign, the president gets shot. By a guy who shouts, "Now Arthur will be president!" just after he fires the gun. Arthur has just spent the past four months fighting the president tooth and nail. Everyone thinks he's behind the assassination. There are lynch mobs looking to take out him and Conkling. The papers are tearing him apart.

Arthur is absolutely distraught. He rushes to Washington to speak with the president and assure him of his innocence, but the doctors won't let him in the room. He gets choked up when talking to the First Lady. Reporters find him weeping in his house in Washington. Once again, death has torn his world apart and he's not getting a chance to make amends.

Arthur goes to New York while the president is getting medical treatment, and he refuses to come to Washington and take charge because he doesn't dare to give the impression that he's looking to take over. No one wants Arthur to be president and he doesn't want to be president, and the possibility that this corrupt political lackey is about to ascend to the highest office in the land is absolutely terrifying to everyone.

Then in August, when it's becoming clear that the president is unlikely to recover, he gets a letter. From a 31-year-old invalid from New York named Julia Sand. A woman from a very politically-minded family who has been following Arthur's career for years. And she writes him this astounding letter that takes him to task for his corrupt, conniving ways, and the obsession with worldly power and prestige that has brought him wealth and fame at the cost of his own soul--and she tells him that he can do better. In the midst of a nationwide press that's tearing him apart, this one woman writes to tell him that she believes he has the capacity to be a good president and a good man if he changes his ways.

And then he does. After Garfield dies, people come to Arthur's house and find servants who tell them that Arthur is in his room weeping like a child (I told you he had big emotions), but he takes the oath of office and ascends to the presidency. And he becomes a completely different man. His first speech as president mentions that one of his top priorities is reforming the spoils system so that people will be appointed based on merit rather than getting appointed as political favors with each change in the administration. Even though this system made him president. When Conkling comes to Arthur's office telling him to appoint his people to important government positions, Arthur calls his demands outrageous, throws him out, and keeps Garfield's appointees in the positions. "He's not Chet Arthur anymore," one of his former political friends laments. "He's the president."

He loses all his former political friends. He's never trusted by the other side. Yet he sticks to his guns and continues to support spoils system reform. He prosecutes a postal service corruption case that everyone thought he would drop. He's the one who signs into law the first civil service reform bill, even though presidents have been trying to do this for more than ten years, and he's the person who's gained all his power through the spoils system. He immediately takes action to enforce this bill when he could have just dropped it. He becomes a champion of this issue even though it's the last thing anyone would have expected of him.

He oversees naval reform. He oversees a renovation of the White House. He still prefers the social duties of the presidency, but he's respectable in a way that no one expected. Possibly because Julia Sand keeps sending him letters of encouragement and advice over the next two years. But also because he's dying.

Not long after ascending to the presidency, he learns he's suffering from a terminal kidney disease. And he tells no one. He keeps going about his daily life, fulfilling his duties as president, and keeps his health problems hidden. Once again, death is upending his life, and this time it's his own death. He's lived a life he's ashamed of, and he doesn't have much time left to change. He enters the presidency as an example of the absolute worst of the political system, and leaves it as a respectable man.

He makes a token effort to seek re-election, but because of his health problems, he doesn't mind at all when someone else gets the nomination. He dies a couple of years after leaving office. The day before his death, he orders most of his papers burned, because he's ashamed of his old life--but among the things that are saved are the letters from Julia Sand, the woman who encouraged him to change his ways.

This is an astounding story full of so many twists and turns and dramatic moments. A man who falls from idealism into the worst kind of corruption and then claws his way back up to decency because of a series of devastating personal losses and unexpected opportunities to do more than he could have ever hoped to do. I just go crazy thinking about it and I need you all to understand just how amazing this story is.