"Not Speaking..."

[jjq]

Well I know of only one family "feud" in our family. My father and his sister broke contact with each other just after my brother was born (1960's) . He needed a blood transfusion - and my aunt had converted to  Jehovah's witness and felt this was wrong.  A shame really, as she was the eldest daughter of the family and may have had information and stories to tell of the family. Happily, after her death, contact was made again with the family.

I learnt that my aunt would not let my father come to her wedding  ( in 1922) because he was very naughty - she was about 18 years older than him !

[LizzieW]

There was a sort of feud in  my family that I didn't know about until I wrote to one of my cousins to tell him my mum had died.  He wrote a long letter back telling me that my mum had had a row with him and not spoken to him since my brother died in 1991.  Apparently she was annoyed because he had not sent a wreath to the funeral or something.  What she hadn't taken into account was that his mother (her sister) was dying of Alzheimers at the time. 

I'd basically lost touch with most of my cousins as they are in the main a lot older than me, so didn't know about her falling out, but since her death I am now back in touch with a lot of them as I wrote to all the ones listed in her address book


Lizzie

[KathMc]

My gg grandmother took her aunts and uncles to court in the 1890s due to they were trying to steal an inheritance. I learned all of this through my research, and would believe my gg gran didn't have any contact with her aunts and uncles after that. I made contact with the someone researching the same last name recently and when I found out she descended from one of the uncles, I told her maybe we should speak.  I do hope she took it as a joke. 

Kath

[jensquest]

Our feud is from the 1970s when my parents were invited to my cousin's wedding, but me and my brother weren't. We were 10 and 11 years old at the time. Mum refused to go unless we all went as other kids were invited. I have no memory of this partof the family at all. The split grew worse when my Gran died as mum nursed her single handedly for years, when her brother and sister in law didn't visit, but after the funeral they went and stripped the house bare of everything! As you can imagine mum was livid at the time. She wasn't informed when her brother passed away about 15 years ago, she found out when we were shopping one day and someone passed n their condolences. Its very sad, I can't imagine having a rift like that with my brother, although I have a sister in law that I don't speak to.

[KathMc]

Jen, that is really sad. One of my mom's cousins had a falling out like your initial falling out over a wedding and kids invited. They didn't speak for over ten years. When their older brother "came home" to die, they reconnected and are now getting a bit closer, thankfully.

Kath

[cmcm1]

sounds like us too
On my Mothers side the Ridgeway's for some reason will not pass on information, even about her cousins
I think it goes back to 1916
Their my brickwall all I would like at this point is photo's lol

[rancegal]

My friend and her partner made a will,
 then they married,
  he died in an accident.
 because the will had her maiden name on it,  she lost everything to his son's by a first marriage, who he had not see since they were babies ,  they had found him on gene's re-united,
she  even had to sell there home .
  Eilleen.

     It wasn't because her maiden name was on it, it was because ANY WILL automatically becomes invalid if the person who made it marries later.

  Moral: have an up-to date will!

[Tricia_2]

I thought that wives automatically inherited from husbands!

Indeed, I know of cases where children have lost parental inheritances because a wife had the prior claim and then passed the money to relatives on her side.

[Tricia_2]

I think that arguments over who was invited where and who married whom were quite common. Inheritances and who looked after Grandma and what religion you were all added to the mix. On top of that there were the secrets about who fathered whom, etc. No wonder family history has so many brick walls!