oh wow - that's terrible... my grandparents have a particularly "cloudy" past for some reason... something murky happened with my GF back when he was a boy, and there's a whole branch of my family that I have absolutely no info on...
My father's situation was similiar until my mother was reading a magazine in the mid 70's and saw a letter to the editor from one of my father's cousin's daughter and wrote to her and my father was reconnected.
whoa - very interesting... get this - my Mother found out (three weeks after her father died) that he had a sister... his Mother left his father and took her daughter with her to California - my Mom has looked for years...
My mother's sister (my aunt) and her husband had a baby and could not take care of him. I do not know the reasons. So, they gave the baby (my cousin) to my aunt who raised him as her own. After the natural mother died, my aunt finally told her nephew that she was not his mother, but his aunt!
I think he is probably crazy. There are so many in my extended family that I do not even know these people.
One more. My cousin married a man and had a baby. She then was divorced and then married the ex-wife's father and had a baby. So, the brothers and also uncle and nephew. This is not fiction.
More close to home - my wife's mother had an "illigitimate" (I use that word for explanation) sister. My mother in law only told my wife about her sister about 5 years ago because my wife's cousin from England was here in Chicago and was talking about their Aunt and we sat there open mouthed!!!!!
There are 10 people staying in this apartment right now, and it is so incredibly loud with all the snoring, talking as people come in between the hours of 2 and 5am from the bar, just moving around in general, that I have given up on sleep.
So I figured I would come chat with you all! Any fun plans for today?