The average person is hiding about 13 secrets at any given time, half of which they’ve never told to anyone. But sometimes secrets find their way into the light, especially when they affect an entire Family.

One curious reddit user posed the question, “What's the darkest secret you found out about a family member/relative?” And many people responded with dark, disturbing and upsetting discoveries that have been made about their families. We’ve gathered some of the most interesting responses down below that might inspire you to start digging around your own family for secrets, but proceed with caution: you never know what you’re going to uncover. 

Be sure to upvote the dark family secrets that you find most surprising, and feel free to share any juicy stories from your own family in the comments below. Then, if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article on the same topic, you can find even more family secrets that would feel right at home in a soap opera script right here.

#1

My uncle tells the story that when he was a kid, his older brother wanted him to go out hunting with him in the woods near their house. They woke up really early, and started walking much deeper into the woods than they usually did, and way off the normal trails they used. My uncle realized his brother was letting him get further and further ahead. He stopped and turned around to see his brother starting to bring the shotgun up in his direction. He asked him what the hell was he doing, his brother said "Oh, I thought I saw something." My uncle decided to go back at that point. Later that week he went back and found a pit that someone had dug a bit further off the trail.

He never went anywhere with his brother alone again.

Image credits: Thowitawaydave

#2

My great uncle is a rapist that prefers underage family members. I don’t know how many people actually know, but my grandparents certainly do along with his victims (my mom, aunt, and I know at least a few or their cousins but I’m not sure which).

But then he found Jesus again so we all have to forgive him and pretend nothing happened? It was before I was born but that’s the basic run around I’ve gotten from my grandparents, they don’t ever actually acknowledge it just that “Tony did bad things but he found God”. I eventually put two and two together about my mom’s history or sexual assault and her making sure that me and my female cousins were never left alone with him. And now that I’m in my 20s that duty has been passed down to me at every family gathering. It’s like an unspoken rule that you can’t say **why**, just the warning. Don’t leave your daughters alone with him.

I’m tired of it though. Tired of shooing little girls away and having to pretend like it’s normal. Scoping toddlers out of a predators arms and acting like everything’s fine and I’m just baby crazy. When this is all over, I’m not going to stay quite anymore. The next time I have to around him I’m taking children right back to their parents with the full f*****g story of why it’s dangerous. I’m tired of having to protect a rapist to keep peace.

#3

I found out that my grandfather’s first wife (before my grandma) died of botulism from eating some tomatoes she had canned at home. She could have been saved, but he refused to take her to the doctor because the botulism was her “fault.” He let her die to teach her a lesson.

Image credits: Filiaeagricola

#4

My father used to secretly go to parks and highway rest stops to meet other men for anonymous sex.

Just in case you're wondering, he really hated gay people.

Image credits: bottle-of-smoke

#5

My step-grandfather had a completely hidden life in Australia before he met my grandmother. He had a family and kids in Australia, and faked his death by driving his car off a cliff then moving to America. His kids thought he was dead until my grandmother found out about them and reached out years later. His son actually became a famous comedian over there, and from what I know has a joke he does at his shows about his father faking his death to disconnect from them.

Image credits: ivydragons

#6

Here goes: My two remaining grandparents, my father's father and my mother's mother, married each other when they were 75. This made my mother and father step-brother and step-sister. Since the son of my father's sister (my aunt) is my cousin, and the son of my mother's brother (my uncle) is also my cousin, I became both cousins. I am, therefore, my own cousin. I'll never be alone...

Image credits: Pigs100

#7

My father tried to kill my mother while she was pregnant with me

Image credits: GloryGloryLater

#8

A few years before he passed, my dad and I had a long heart to heart, at the end of which, he told me he wasn’t the one to first sleep with my mom on their honeymoon.

He caught her in bed with her cousin, with which she was had been in love for a long time.

He spoke with their pastor, who told him to forgive and forget.

That worked, until 6 years later, when he caught her again, with the same cousin. He told me he wanted to leave with me but ultimately decided to stay, because he wanted me to have a family.

With all that happened in my childhood, and to him (workaholic, diabetes, heart attack), I wish he’d left and be happy instead.

#9

That my grandfather murdered his own brother to inherit his money

Image credits: WatchBat

#10

Not necessarily a family secret but a weird story nonetheless.

This happened around 2013 - Instagram wasn’t totally new but it was still a much smaller platform centered a lot around visual artists. Through Instagram - a friend of mine found a profile that was my goddamn doppelgänger. Like, this guy looked so much like me that I sent multiple photos of him to my mom and she was convinced it was me even after I told her.

Now, for the purpose of the story I’ll just say I am incredibly unique looking. Dark brown hair, firey red beard, almost a full bodysuit of tattoos. Same for this guy. The brands of clothes I wore, even down to the gold and black RayBan Clubmasters. I am a professional Tattooer and he is a painter who owns an art gallery.

So - keeping with how the internet worked back then - we said hey and joked about meeting and occasionally would call or FaceTime the other to prove a drunken point.

Then, I got an opportunity to travel to NYC for work. This guy lived in NYC as well so we made plans to meet up! Bought plane tickets, made arrangements and even talked about how funny it would be to get a photo together.

Then we started talking about how funny it would be if we were long lost brothers and he goes “that’s entirely possible! My Dad was never in the picture - he was a traveling biker that hooked up with my mom one night.” Which was weird because my dad was a tattooer and notorious biker who traveled in the area he lived when he was growing up. I thought it was a long shot but I said “hey! Ask your mom if his name is James Jobin! Wouldn’t that be crazy if we are brothers?!”

He loled and agreed that would be funny - said he’d ask his mom the next morning before I got into town.

Then he blocked me on everything. Instagram, Facebook, Text. Absolute radio silence.

I’ve made other accounts to check up on him and see how he’s doing but I’ve never reached back out. The thought that I could have a brother is bittersweet for me - I wanna respect his right to have contact with me or not but it does break my heart a little every time I think about him.

#11

In doing ancestry research, I found a prison record for my great-grandfather. Felony assault at age 18 in 1901. My mom was shocked and never knew.

Image credits: BestCatEva

#12

Step father was cheating on mother. Didnt find out because he was caught cheating; found out because he and his mistress were drunk, got in a fight, and he punched her so hard that she fell over and died. Found out about the whole thing during the investigation, the trial, and the conviction. Was weird to have a lawyer want to call 12 year old me to a stand to defend the character of a man I already had very little interaction and a fear of, and that was before the manslaughter charge.

#13

Not really dark at all, but surprising. My mild mannered Buddhist lawyer uncle was International Mr. Leather's "Leather Daddy's Boy of the Year" some time in the late 80s.

Image credits: Theatre_throw

#14

My biological grandfather threatened to kill my grandmother while she was very young and pregnant with my uncle. (Long story short, he was engaged to someone else).

My grandmother became a nervous wreck while pregnant and wouldn’t leave the house and he used to throw bricks through the window. Eventually she told some of her friends about what he’d threatened to do to her. Shortly after that he went missing, never to be seen or heard from again.

We always kind of laughed and joked that one of her friends must have threatened him or ‘ran him out of town’. We would even go as far to say someone might have killed him for her.

It wasn’t until we were going through her boxes of photos and ‘love letters’ we realised she was actually friends with the Kray twins...

Image credits: blxndeandblue

#15

Two years ago I found out that my Dad had a wife before my Mom and she died in a freak accident on their wedding night.

Image credits: PookSpeak

#16

A relative tried to poison one of their guests. Once I learned about it, it finally sealed the deal for me and forever changed my view on them. They were bonkers anyway but good lord that's too much.

Image credits: VonFelder

#17

My great uncle told his wife that their son died right after being born and gave him up to the state because he had Down's Syndrome. They had twins, a boy and a girl, and he somehow hid it from the whole family for about 40 years. It was only found out when the family lawyer was dying and contacted the sister to tell her she has a living brother who lives in a home run by the state. I guess he had helped my great uncle with the whole thing and still felt terrible about it.

Also, for some added context, my great uncle was extremely wealthy. He could have easily paid for multiple caregivers to help his son and it wouldn't have effected his life at all.

Image credits: stev10

#18

Found out the hard way that my grandfather was a sexual predator. Turns out my grandmother had been in denial despite both my aunts, their friends, and young girls in their small town claiming he raped/molested them (one 16 year-old even got pregnant and *he paid for the abortion*). Grandma lied about his whereabouts/activities for years to protect him because if he went to jail she'd be unable to afford their house. So, long story short, me and my then 10 year old cousin were his latest and final victims.

Thanks, Grandma.

#19

Both of my mother's parent's had affairs without the others knowledge. My grandmother had Parkinson's and in one of her confused states she told my grandfather that she had an affair.

Suffice to say my grandfather was not happy and put her in a home. He then started talking to my mother trying to figure out when it could have happened. He speculated that it happened around the same time he was having his affair, which was around 1966. My mother was shocked, she was born in 1967.

So my mother may or may not be related to the man she believed to be her father.

Image credits: Witchgirl2658

#20

My parents had a nasty divorce which was often accompanied by a lot of s**t-talking about each other. There was a lot of “well your mother blah blah blah” and “your dad is such and such”, most of which I would just ignore because it was incredibly immature and embarrassing, until one day my mom broke out the big guns. My siblings and I were just watching t.v in the living room one day and the conversation moved to my dad coming to town to visit, at which point my mom overheard. The mere mention of dad prompted this woman to stop whatever she was doing, come into the living room, and say something along the lines of: “talking about your dad again, huh? Did you know that he was *molested*”?

My dad had never mentioned anything about it in the 18 years that I lived with him, which is understandable. To this day, I have no idea why my mom felt the need to blurt that out to the three of us, or why it is she thought that being the victim of sexual abuse was a stain on someone’s character, but it was a really weird way to find out something so deeply personal about my dad.

TL;DR: My mom told my siblings and I that my dad was molested when he was little as a way to spite him.

#21

Found out my birth father was still alive and living in California after being told for years he had died in the Navy before I was born. Fast forward a couple of years and a Sister whome I was told had died at birth contacted me saying she had been adopted. Put all the pieces together and found out that my Grandparents, mother then 16 and uncle then 14 were stealing cars in Southern California and running them down to Tijuana. When the Feds started snooping the whole family ran for the border and made it as far as central America where my mother discovered she was pregnant with me. They then turned noth and made it to Zapata Texas where I was born. She gave me the name of her last boyfriend and told me he died in the Navy. Less than a year after I was born she gave birth to my half sister and gave her up fo adoption telling the family she was still born. My mother was a pathological lier all her life and I didn't find out until I joined the Navy at 17 and found my birth father was still alive.

Also found out my Grandmother was a prostatute, madam, and arsonist as well but that is another story.

#22

when i was a kid we went to my grandma’s house every sunday and all of my uncles and aunts would be there. one day i noticed that one of my uncles didn’t show up anymore so i asked my family where he is. they told me that he wouldn’t be able to visit anymore because he moved away.
years later i found out that he raped and killed two women and they locked him up.

#23

When I was growing up my grandfather hated anything Russian.
If there were any news about them he turned of the TV. if they played against any other team in hockey or so he didn't watch it (even tho he loved ice hockey and it was a world cup final).


I was a kid I didn't understand why, to me he was a retired carpenter and grandfather.
When he passed away my uncle told me everything. How he served as a foreign volunteer for Finland in the winter war against Soviet (my great grandfather was from Finland). How he's friend were taken as a POW and executed. He then want back to Finland for the continuation war where he was wounded and almost died in the battle of Ilomansti, the last big battle.

#24

My grandmother used to kidnap and sell young girls in Mexico back in the 50's and 60's. She would sell them to ranchers to presumably be wives and/or sex slaves. She was not a good person at all.

#25

I found out 2 years ago that my mother had a baby she gave up for adoption 18 months before she had me and then had another baby when I was 3 and she also gave that baby up for adoption. All 3 of us have different fathers and I think the only reason she kept me was because my father married her but that marriage only lasted a year. My mother remarried when I was 5 and my (half) brother was born when I was 7. As far as I knew for 59 years he and I were our mother's only children.

I never saw her pregnant with the 2nd baby because she sent me to live with my great-grandparents across the country during her pregnancy. My mother and grandmother were the only people who knew about this and they both took the secret to their graves.

The only reason any of it was found out is because of all of the DNA testing people now do. This discovery really impacted my sense of identity for a while, my view of my mother, and our relationship.

I've met my half-siblings, an older sister and younger brother. I like them and I'm glad I've been able to answer some of their questions but the initial discovery really messed with me for a bit.

Image credits: Cheercraft

#26

My Uncle didn’t have an ~~aneurism~~ stroke spontaneously. (Sorry, I’m not a Doctor)

He deliberately stopped taking his blood thinners.

Dude was 63 with a wife, four kids and 15 grandkids, the oldest of which was 13 and the youngest was not even a year.

He was just done. His wife doesn’t know, his kids don’t know. I only know cause I overheard the family doctor telling my dad. As far as I know, only myself. The Doctor, and my dad know.

Image credits: Phranquelyhnne

#27

I found out my dad killed someone in a drunk driving accident. My mum randomly told me a few years ago, it shook me for a while. I think it still very low-key affects him.

Image credits: Spadarlvl1000

#28

I found out that my great-grandpa got away with murder. He thought that my great-grandma was cheating on him with her dentist so he went into his office and shot him. He got away with it too and they didn't find out that he did it until he told everybody before he died.

Image credits: AlexGeekSpeak

#29

Growing up I never understood why my dad could sometimes be so cold to my mom. When I was 13 he passed away and I had to start dealing with my learned relationship habits. My aunts began telling me the story of his first wife.. My father and her got pregnant and he was called to the hospital and excitedly ran into the room to find her and her lesbian lover standing there with the baby. They told him "we are done with you and she wants a divorce." It was a years long plot to have a baby with him and he never even suspected anything. My grandmother said he was crushed for years. I probably hurt women along they way in my navigating relationships as well. Please don't make selfish choices that hurts others, it hurts more people than you think...

#30

I recently found out that my grandmother committed suicide as a result of the sexual abuse she received from her grandfather as a child (aged 8-14). Apparently her mother and many of her relatives were compliant with it and would even send her to his house for week long visits where she would sleep in his bed.

#31

My uncle’s family claimed he had polio instead of a hereditary crippling disease. His wife figured it out when she went to their family reunion. She already had one child and was pregnant with another.

Image credits: follygolly

#32

My mother "supposedly" has a fraternal twin. My grandmother couldn't handle the thought of two kids so she gave the male child away to someone she knew that was moving away.

In a drug induced rage one night my grandmother screamed at my mom that she kept the wrong child; it was never mentioned before or after that moment. My mom was roughly 12 at the time. She asked my great grandmother about it and she knew the boy's name but not where they moved to or who he was living with. My mom actually had met him once but didn't know who he actually was. My grandmother denies it ever happened and my grandfather felt that "surely they'd have had to tell me". I doubt they would have though.

When she was pregnant with me, my mom asked my great-grandmother what my middle name should be: my middle name is actually his middle name.

#33

My mom and dad decided to take in my 3 cousins because their mom got into a horrible car accident. Two girls and one boy. The girls were 6 and 10, the boy 12. Fast forward to when the 6 yr old girl is 14 years old and is asked about birth control. She starts sobbing saying her brother (the then 12 yr old) took her virginity when she was 6 and that it continued until she was about 13. We had no clue.

#34

I found out that my great grandpa wasn't actually my great grandpa because my great grandma had my grandma (her daughter) with a famous boxer who was extremely abusive. She divorced him after having kids with him and met my great grandpa while she was supervising the manufacturing of B-25 bombers during WW2. My mom and I are the only ones (besides my grandparents) that know the true story.

#35

I found out from my dad that one of my cousins isn't related to anyone in the family. My aunt and her mother used to work at a hospital maternity ward and apparently a woman came in one day and gave birth to him and then left the next day without him. My aunt decided to adopt him, but a few months later the woman showed up again asking where he was. They both lied that he was given up and didn't have a clue where he was.

They still haven't told my cousin anything.

#36

My dad told me that, before my mom and dad broke up, he hadn't been happy with her for several years. My mother even had a miscarriage at one point, which destroyed the both of them. But he couldn't leave her, because he was afraid that she would hurt or even kill herself. So his only thought was to have a kid with her, so that motherly instinct would hopefully prevent her from killing herself.

Image credits: SnooDonuts5850

#37

Oof, my mom saw her friend die in front of her because of a bus, my mom even said that she saw her intestines coming out her mouth; mind you my mom was I think 9 or 10 years old at the moment

After she told me about that I never questionned her again about her past because who knows what else she went through! I may think she is problematic but seeing her sad is not my goal at all and I felt terrible for her (and for the kid)

#38

One of my aunts raised another aunt’s baby as her own.

My mom had 4 sisters and a brother all of whom got married and had kids, so I have around 20 cousins. Unfortunately 3 of my aunts got breast cancer in their 30s. All 3 recovered, but years later the youngest, Maria, got it again and got it worse.

Maria needed a bone marrow transplant. All her sisters and children got tested, but no one matched. The family then revealed that Maria had had a teenage pregnancy. Her first child was actually my cousin John who had been adopted and raised by my oldest aunt as her 2nd child. None of the cousins knew about this including John and his revealed to be adoptive siblings. John was asked to get tested and was a match, so he agreed to donate bone marrow to his birth mom, Maria. John was in his late twenties at the time and had had very little contact with Maria over his life, so he’s pretty cool.

The transplant took, but Maria eventually succumbed a year or so later.

Image credits: dring157

#39

Found out that my great grandpa killed my great grandma. I never actually met him, he died before I was born, but throughout my life I heard many good things about him. My mom would tell me of how he was very caring and calm, and then one day I found out that he sometimes beat up my great grandma, and, in a fight where he was super drunk, he shot her. Worst of all, no one in the family called the police and they sort of just "hid" this, like, he didn't go to jail or anything. I understand that this was many decades ago and things were different (unfortunately for the worse sometimes), and it wasn't uncommon for men (even the good ones) to beat up their wives, but still, it was quite a shock for me considering that everyone in my family always talked about him with a smile on their faces. Mom told me that he regretted it for the rest of his life and constantly talked about how he missed his wife, but still...

#40

There is strong debate in our family as to whether my aunt fell out of the window of her flat, whether she jumped or was pushed. She survived, but with brain damage, and says she can't remember.

#41

1990, I'm 5 yrs old. I'm at my dad's house after he left for 4 months to Tennessee. He frequently did that because he supposedly loved the state. My mom is watching America's Most Wanted and a segment involved a man in Tennessee being murdered with a police sketch of the last person to see the victim alive. The sketch was an exact image of my dad. Supposedly a mutual friend of my parents went to the local police department on other business and the deputy asks "Hey, have you seen Rich lately?" The friend responded "sure, couple weeks ago I saw him downtown." They insisted if he's seen, they needed to talk to him. If he did do it, he's an extremely good liar because he was never brought on charges to my knowledge. I've been estranged from him since I was 8.

#42

I don't know if it would be considered a family secret as my mom grew up in a small town so everyone would know but -

So I've mentioned in past posts that my great-grandma died when my grandma was four and her father remarried a woman who had kids of her own. Step-great-grandma used to beat my grandma and her siblings horrifically as soon as their father left the house, locked them in the basement all day, etc. Obviously this had a negative effect on them. Grandma grew up to do this to her own kids, for instance.

Well, one of my great-uncles became an alcoholic. He also robbed graves. Apparently he had kind of a fetish for gold teeth, but he also stole jewelry and stuff that he could sell to buy booze. Mom says she could remember him showing up at the backdoor when she was a kid covered in dirt and her mom would always take him in for awhile, feeding him, clothing him, etc. Then he'd go right back out to drinking and grave robbing.

Mom always told me he died in an accident. Several years ago though one of my uncles informed me that he really died when he was found passed out on someone's front lawn. They had called the cops and when they arrived and tried to arrest him, he woke up and started resisting the arrest, fighting the cops. So they killed him.

#43

My dad's friend commited suicide by shooting himself in the head in front of my dad and some other friends when he was 15 years old.

They were all hanging out at the friend's house having a good time, when he went upstairs, grabbed his father's pistol, and came back down calling everyone's attention. He then put the gun to his head. squeezed the trigger, and collapsed behind a couch. They all thought it was some sort of sick joke at first, until they looked over the couch and saw his body and the blood.

I first heard this story from my mom when I was 18, which explained some of my dad's behavior towards toy guns when I was a kid, but I never brought it up to him. I just hoped that one day he would open up to me about and eventually he did, but we haven't talked about it since then.

I'm amazed how my dad dad turned out to be such a great man having to expeience something awful like that at such a young age, but according to him it's something that never left him either. He still has nightmares about it and get really uneasy in movies and TV shows when they show someone getting shot in the head.

#44

When I was young I was told my grandpa was murdered by an ex convict. Hit him in the head or something.

When I got older iwas told that he didn't die that easily.
Some dudes broke into his house and tied him up. Told him he must give them the legal documents for the house as a present or something alike. When he didn't do that they started tortured him. At some point I think they amputet a knee or something. Strong man. Didn't give in. We only found out because those dudes were caught for something else, and admitted to murder because they'd get a higher rank in prison.

#45

I'm the only child between my mom and dad but they both had children from previous relationships. All of my siblings were 15+ years older than me. When I was 7, my mom and dad split because my dad "had feelings" for my mom's oldest daughter who already had four kids. Ok, gross and s**tty but both adults so whatever. Cut to 13 years or so later and my dad is suddenly all in involved in the life of one of the kids of that sister. 20 yo me was oblivious as to why this was happening. Took me another 7 years to put all the pieces together that my dad was the father of that kid. I had grown up thinking she was just niece but she was in reality my half sister-niece. I've never discussed it with anyone in my family. My mom died before I put all the pieces together.

But wait... there's more!

My family and I are all from Mississippi. Cue Deliverance banjo music. My dad was born in 1945 so unsurprisingly, he's super racist. And I mean like, SUPER RACIST. That sister-niece of mine? She ended up having two kids with one-legged black man. The one-legged part isn't really relevant except for him showing up to my house one day and suddenly doing pushups in my living room for no apparent reason.

Anyway, karma's a b***h. Cheat on my mom with your step daughter, get her knocked up, basically have nothing to do with said child's life then the child goes and commits, in his eyes, probably the biggest betrayal possible. I would throw a chef's kiss right here except all I really care about from this story is the pain it must have put my mom through and I was took young or oblivious to be there for her. Miss you, Cotty.

#46

My great uncle was murdered along with his wife, the murder suspect was run down and got stuck in a swamp, shot himself in the head.

The strange particulars. My uncle, his wife, and the murderer were all deaf/mute. The murderer was renting a room from them. This happened in the 40's, and no one ever found the motive.

A few years ago, I took a DNA test, and found that I had cousins who had descended from the murderers wife.

Turns out my great uncle was cuckolding him.

#47

My grandpa who died back in 2017 was a very quiet man and didn't talk a lot. A few years before he died, my Mom (his daughter) told me why. Apparently when he was around 10 years old back in the late 30's or early 40's, a girl around his age lived across the street. One time they went out with his rifle to shoot at random things in the woods. On their way home there was a fence they had to get over to get home. My grandfather leaned his rifle on the fence to help his friend get over the fence since she was a girl. As she was going over the rifle fell over and went off, killing the girl. After the cops got involved, he was found to not be at fault, but the girls family stood out in the street at various times over the next two weeks, yelling "MURDERER" at my grandpa's house. He eventually couldn't take it, and ran away from home. In his teens he met this guy named Rocky and befriended him. Rocky was supposedly in his early to mid twenties. Something happened where Rocky ended up passing away and my grandfather took his name. I had always wondered why my grandfather had a different last name than his brothers.

Here is where it gets even weirder. My Dad was adopted and until recently, we didn't know anything about his biological family. Well, thanks to all of the DNA tests that have become common, we ended getting connected with his biological family, to include his Dad(my Dads Dad), who is still alive and in his late 80's. Talking to that part of the family, we have come to find out that my Dad's biological Dad has almost the same story as my Mom's Dad. He also had accidently killed someone as a child, ran away from home and changed his identity.

Can you do a TLDR in the comments? My Moms dad accidentally killed girl, ran away from home, and changed his identity. My Dad is adopted, we found his bio Dad, and he has almost the exact same story, killed someone as a child, ran away from home, and changed his identity.

#48

This will probably get lost, but here's my story.

Had some family move to Vegas with a local churches money (close to a million dollars) to open a new church for them in sin city.

They gambled it all away.

Came back church told them to f**k off basically.

They started their own church that allowed them to buy multi million dollar houses, brand new cars for them and their kids, basically a luxury lifestyle.

They sell merch at the front door to the church, members are required to provide bank info and they tithe 10% monthly income from all families. If you don't pay up, they kick you out. They tell you how to eat and exercise. If you don't follow they kick you out. They put it in an old movie theater so they have multiple stages. Full lighting and av crews. They do love offerings when they need extra cash. God tells them to take trips (like told their congregation God told them to ride motorcycles through the grand canyon) he even claimed he had healing powers for a short amount of time and got SAINT tattooed down his arm. The whole 9 yards.

At the beginning of the pandemic when they were shutting everything down, they pressured their congregation to pay the 10% for the WHOLE YEAR UPFRONT*

They've cut contact with all our family because we won't be part of their church.

Also their church is well know in our city and local area, but no one has stepped in. Cuz, ya know, Bible belt.

My cousin started a cult.

#49

My dad has a brother who I've never met and I didn't even know about his existence until a few years ago. I asked my parents why nobody from the family talks about him and why haven't they invite him to us but they said "just because". And then we had other relatives over at our house and I heard them talking about him and it turns out the guy is a criminal and he spent almost all his life in prison but the worst thing he did is that he was molesting his own daughter (or at least he was accused with it) but my mother and also the half of the extended family believes till this day that his daughter just made it up for attention..

#50

Since a lot of these are about murders and rapists, mine is a bit funny. we once found a "family photo album" in my whacky aunts house. Start flipping through the plastic pages and BOOM! gang bang photos. there had to be like 20-30 people in these photos. It was back in the 80s i'd imagine and everyone was so hairy and ugly.

I guess Aunt Jan is part of a swinging community.

#51

A cousin confided in me a month ago that she was molested by my grandfather when we were kids. She even told me that I was there with her when this was happening and I somehow don't remember anything about it. I hope he's burning in hell for it.

#52

my Great Grandpa might have worked for the mafia in LA and Nevada.

#53

When I was very young, my oldest cousin died at the age of 23. I really liked him because he would take to me this local lake and we'd throw rocks and dead fish into the water. I remember not understanding what was going on other than watching everyone be sadder than I ever knew was possible at the time, but I wasn't told why. Years later I found out he committed suicide.

Years after that I found out what happened. My aunt found him hanging in the shed with a note saying he was gay, and based on how he heard the family talk about homosexuals, he thought they'd never accept him.

To this day they hold opinions I would deem hateful towards others, so honestly I'm not sure he was completely wrong. Today he would be in his 50s.

#54

My mother disclosed to me that she had once been date raped by a friend. She was impregnated she said she got an abortion and regretted it for the rest of her life. Then when my father knocked her up with me he told her to get an abortion. And said "you already got one before" he left her when i was around 3yrs old and i never saw him again. He died before i could ever catch up with him. I had wanted some sort of closure and or to talk to him about everything.

#55

I found this out about two weeks ago.

In my teenage years, my grandmothers started dating a rough guy and for about four years, we didn't see her any more unless we were picking her up from the hospital after he beat on her.

I took it that we were disappointed in her decision to keep this guy in her life. After a recent visit from my mom I found out that my grandmother's boyfriend was a large-scale drug dealer who routinely, and without consequence beat people in public. The cops wouldn't pursue him, people who knew who he was wouldn't press charges.

My mother and her sisters went to county law enforcement and when they learned the man's name, and looked up who he was they literally gasped that this individual was in their county - and that they could not discuss him further without consequence.

My dad worked for a major hotel & resort and had the head of security (retired secret service agent) make some calls - 2 days later an FBI agent showed up in the doorway of his office, flashed credentials and asked why my dad was looking into this man. After a brief explanation of the story the agent told my dad "let it go." and left.

The man was in my family's life from 1993-1997 when he died of a heart attack, my grandmother died a few months later. We've speculated on everything from "Mobster" to "high value witness protection program participant". I'm 40 years old and I still have no answers on this VERY dark chunk of my family's history.

If ANYONE has any ideas of how/where to research this - I would LOVE to know more.

#56

My parents told us they were "married in secret" until they found out my mom was expecting and then the "told" their families. It later came to light that they married on the day they found out my mom was pregnant and lied to their parents and us but that wasn't the doozy. My father was an only child and his parents absolutely idolized him. They were very strict Catholics and very strict with my dad never allowing him to play sports because the feared losing him or whatnot. My paternal grandmother had like 5 miscarriages. Anyway, after my dad's parents passed, he was going through their documents and he learned THEY had to get married too. Their wedding license was dated 2 months AFTER the date he had always been told! I know it's not a very dark secret, just a very catholic secret in a very catholic family....

#57

That my cousin has been having an affair and physically abuses her husband because he won't believe the texts aren't real and that she threatened to kill him and her kids

#58

Found out that a great great uncle pretty much got away with murder. His wife turns up dead, and she had bruising around her neck. Criminal forensics wasn't to advanced back in the early 1900's. Don't know how they ruled how she died, but he remained free, and ended up marring her sister a couple months later.

#59

My Grandfather who I never met was in a Cult and him and his friends sexually abused my father and uncles. The weird thing is my father gave me his first name for my middle name. I’ve always thought it was the Stockholm Syndrome that made my father name me after his pervert and demented dad. I am legally changing my name on my next birthday. My father has never been a “normal” person, supposedly according to my uncle he got the worst of the abuse, which I accredit to his messed up childhood.

#60

My grandmother on my father's side caused so much grief for her parents (my great-grandparents) that it actually led my great-grandma to have a heart attack and led to a huge rift in the family. Not all grandmothers are the cookie-baking kinds you see on TV.

#61

Not a secret but just something weird. In the late 1960s my maternal grandmothers husband divorced her and gave her partial custody of their two boys. During one of the visits she took off with her two kids and moved them from North Dakota to California. Her entire family was Seventh Day Adventist which is a tight community so when she moved to California she found an area that was very Seventh Day Adventist and sort of waited knowing that the community would protect her from the authority's. Keep in mind that previous husband had not been accused of abuse she was just mad that she did not get full custody. This arrangement lasted from about 1968-1971 finally she had a falling out between either her adopted mother or her cousin and they called her husband who came and got the kids. My grandmother did not receive jail time for the kidnapping but was not permitted to see the kids again. As far as I know she has not seen either child since 1971. The seventh day Adventist church later paired her with another perisher who would become my grandfather. Neither my mom nor my aunts have ever met their half brothers.

#62

My dad, told me had a half-brother when he was 90.