Women's History Month: Surprise discovery

March is Women's History Month and as such GeneaBloggers' prompt today is: Have you discovered a surprising fact about one of your female ancestors? What was it and how did you learn it? How did you feel when you found out?

Over the years, I've had quite a few surprises from the women in my family. I've come to simply accept them.

My first surprise - that I recall as a surprise - was the fact that Margaret Still had a child out of wedlock back in 1808. Margaret is my 4th great grandmother. The bigger surprise though with regards to her was the rape charge she filed later against a David Philips who possibly fathered her second child, No clue who fathered my 3rd great grandfather George David Still though.

Another surprise was from my Baba & Gigi. My grandparents had two boys - my father and Uncle John. When I had my miscarriage in 1995, they were so sweet and so helpful in me getting through that difficult time. It was then though that they me that Baba had had a hard time getting pregnant. I was surprised how open they were about everything.

Another surprise on mom's side was a cousin who had actually been in a convent preparing to become a nun when she met the man who was to become her husband. A nun!

There were several other surprises over the years. Enough so that I learned to always carry a notepad and pen with me. Sometimes I would only hear the story told once.

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