Secrets From a Genealogist Ghostwriter
As a genealogist and ghostwriter, I’ve been honored to help people tell their family stories — sometimes for private keepsakes, sometimes for published memoirs.
But no matter the end goal, the process almost always involves a few surprises.
Old records don’t just preserve names and dates; they preserve secrets, struggles, and truths long buried beneath layers of time.
Here’s a peek behind the curtain — five real (and anonymized) stories that emerged during my research for clients. Each one is a powerful reminder of why preserving your family history is so meaningful, and why it often turns up far more than anyone expects.
The Vanishing Grandfather
One client came to me with a mystery: according to family lore, her grandfather had simply “disappeared” sometime in the 1940s. No one seemed to know what happened to him, and no death record could be found.
Through a combination of census records, state hospital registries, and some good old-fashioned digging, I discovered that this “missing” grandfather had actually been institutionalized in a state asylum.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia in his twenties, he spent more than four decades in the institution, passing away quietly in the 1980s.
His name was never spoken again — likely a result of the heavy stigma surrounding mental illness at the time — and my client had grown up believing he’d simply disappeared.
She had no idea he’d lived well into adulthood.
When we uncovered the truth, she told me it brought her a deep sense of peace. He hadn’t vanished — he’d just been hidden.
Knowing what really happened not only filled in a painful blank spot in the family’s story, but also shed light on patterns of mental health in later generations. It helped her begin to understand her family in a new, more compassionate way.
A Secret Sister
Another project began as a simple family history project, but things took a turn when my client submitted a DNA sample to help flesh out her tree.
The results revealed a match she didn’t recognize — a woman with no apparent connection to anyone in her known family.
What followed was a series of careful conversations and additional research, including birth records and adoption documents.
It turned out that when my client was a toddler, her mother had given birth to another child — a daughter — conceived during an affair. The baby had been quietly placed for adoption, and the mother never spoke of it again.
The two sisters eventually connected, and while the reunion came with a swirl of emotions, both were grateful for the chance to build a relationship that had been decades in the making.
Not German After All
“I’ve always wanted to trace my German roots,” one client told me. His grandparents had come from what the family called “the old country,” and he’d grown up proud of his German traditions — holiday recipes, old family sayings, and stories passed down around the dinner table.
But when I dug into the records, I found something unexpected.
While his ancestors had indeed lived in what is now eastern Germany, they weren’t ethnically German at all. They were Sorbs — a small West Slavic ethnic group that has lived in the region for over a thousand years.
The Sorbian people (also known historically as Wends or Lusatians) are native to a part of eastern Germany known as Lusatia, spanning the modern-day states of Saxony and Brandenburg.
Despite centuries of Germanization efforts, including language suppression and cultural assimilation, the Sorbs managed to preserve their unique identity, language (there are actually two — Upper and Lower Sorbian!), and folk traditions.
My client’s ancestors were part of that incredible legacy.
Church records and regional documents found in the local archives and parish revealed Sorbian names, language usage, and even involvement in local cultural organizations. His family had quietly passed down bits of that heritage, though the name “Sorbian” had been lost somewhere along the way.
Learning this didn’t take away from his identity — it added a whole new layer. It helped him to understand where the stubbornness and determination in his family comes from.
For him, discovering the Sorbian connection opened a new chapter — not just in his family story, but in how he saw himself.
Buried Family Secrets
This one still gives me chills.
My client had grown up on a farm in rural Kentucky, surrounded by a sprawling extended family. Holidays were loud and joyful — filled with cousins, aunts, uncles, and endless home-cooked food. His mother was the oldest daughter of 13 siblings, and his father came from a family of 9, so there was never a shortage of relatives nearby.
Yet, despite the sheer size of the family, he had always been an only child — raised by a quiet, kind, hard-working couple who lived a simple, middle-class life.
They were loving and steady, though they rarely spoke about their past.
When he hired me, it was mostly out of curiosity. He wanted to understand where his people had come from — nothing more. But as I worked through census records, birth certificates, and marriage licenses, a subtle inconsistency began to appear.
His birth record, when I finally located it, didn’t list the people he knew as his parents. Instead, it named a different woman — someone I quickly realized was actually his “aunt”… the youngest of his mother’s twelve siblings.
As the pieces fell into place, a clearer picture emerged.
It turned out his biological mother had been just barely a teenager when she became pregnant — too young, too unprepared, and in a time when such things were kept behind closed doors. She was quietly sent away to give birth, and when she returned, the baby had been “adopted” by her older sister and brother-in-law, who raised him as their own.
No one outside the immediate family ever knew the truth.
Adding another layer to the story: the woman who raised him had never been able to have biological children of her own. Taking in her sister’s baby gave her a chance to become a mother, while also shielding the family from shame in a judgmental era.
When I presented the findings, he was calm and thoughtful. The truth didn’t change the love or loyalty he felt for the parents who raised him, but it did explain a lot — questions he’d quietly carried for years.
It also gave him a deeper appreciation for the complexity of his family’s choices, and for the quiet sacrifices that shaped the course of his life.
Back to Italy With the Right Name
Many families hit a brick wall in their research when their ancestors first appear in U.S. records. For one client, no one had been able to trace their line before the 1880s, despite several relatives having tried for years.
The breakthrough came when I found a ship manifest listing the family’s original surname — one that had been shortened and Anglicized after their arrival.
With the correct name and information found in the manifest, I was able to trace the family back to Italy.
Then, through church registers, property documents, and even tax rolls, I uncovered their names and a picture of the lives they lead, all the way back to the early 1700s.
My client cried when I presented my research findings to him.
He had been convinced that he would never know where his ancestors came from.
Now, he not only has the answers he desperately wanted, but he is able to pass them on to his grandchildren.
Every Family Has a Story
These are just a handful of the stories I’ve uncovered in my work. Every family has its own twists and turns—some joyful, some painful, all profoundly human.
If you’ve ever wondered what stories are hiding in your own family tree, it might be time to find out. You never know what you’ll discover when you start looking.
| Need help uncovering your family’s history or turning it into a story worth sharing? Contact us today to learn more about our genealogy services and ghostwriting packages. Let’s bring your family story to life. |
