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People like to explore and investigate other people's mysteries, and this is far from a secret. This is where the success of detectives, thrillers and other mystical stories lies - it's so exciting to watch how someone's secret gradually unfolds before your eyes. And as it unfolds, you become involved, because now this is your secret as well.

What could be more exciting? Probably just a family secret that we happen to be involved in by accident. However, there is a downside, because you never know how this family mystery will turn out. It is quite possible that the impeccable reputation of one of our ancestors will collapse like a house of cards in the wind.

Perhaps a person who has always been disliked in your family will appear in a completely different light. Or, let's say, the reason for this or that act committed by one of your relatives will be revealed in a brand new way. Who knows what other skeletons lurk behind the completely nice and peaceful-looking door to the family closet?

And in general, is it worth opening this door at all, or is it better to remain in blissful ignorance? In any case, sometimes it happens that we learn some kind of family secret quite by chance, because it was not entirely intended for our ears. Like the commenters in this thread in the AskReddit community where the question was asked a few days ago: "What family secret do you know, that you're not supposed to know?" Today the thread has approximately 5.7K upvotes and about 4.0K comments. A whole repository of family secrets, bright and not-so-bright ones.

Bored Panda has compiled a special selection of the most popular comments from the original thread, so now feel free to enjoy the most unexpected, dark or funny family secrets that suddenly saw the light of day. And if you have your own similar story, we literally beg you to tell it in the comments below.

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#1

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community Grandma and Grandpa did love eachother and were married but weren't "together"

Grandma was gay and grandpa was her best friend. She wanted kids so they had kids but she had her love "Auntie Doreen" we called her. Grandpa was free to do whatever he wanted and to our knowledge never had a dedicated partner besides my grandmother.

Just the times, glad they could make it work for them :)

Eas_Mackenzie , Quinn Dombrowski Report

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professormcgonagallminerva avatar
Stardust she/her
Stardust she/her
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That’s lovely! Although kind of sad that back in her day she has to be married off and hide her feelings from most of the world

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#2

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community I have faint memories from when I was a kid of an aunt on my father's side. I remember her being thin and sad with blond hair. No one would talk to me about her and I didn't remember a name until one day the name Karen just hit me. Don't laugh, this was the 70's and Karens weren't really a thing. Neither my older or younger siblings remember her and no one would talk about her. No pictures, nothing.

About 2 years before his death in 2018, I was talking to my grandfather and looking through pictures with him when I found the woman from my memories and asked about her. My father had a sister, Karen. She was born in 1948. When she was a baby, my grandfather took her out to his woodworking shop just to hang out with him while he worked. He sat her on a workbench, turned to grab some tools and turned around just in time to see her hit the floor head first. He said that he'd remember the sound for the rest of his life, like dropping a watermelon. They took her to the local doctor, but he said he didn't find anything wrong. For the rest of her life, she suffered from debilitating headaches and later, schizophrenia. When she was 26, she called him from a city about 6 hours away, from a payphone. She was sobbing about voices that wouldn't stop talking and that she couldn't take it anymore. He immediately jumped in his car and made it there in 4 hours, but the police had already found her dead in her car with a hose running from the exhaust pipe into a window.

I am the only one who seems to know she existed. My mother doesn't remember her, or denies it. My dad passed away. Both grandparents are gone too. But I remember her face and her telling me it was okay to be sad. Grandpa said she was always interested in me. I'm neuro divergent and really struggled with social skills as a child. I think that it made her feel less alone.

BanditSixActual , Chun Kit To Report

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Cold Contagious
Cold Contagious
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This makes my heart ache for OP. It's such a sad story, but I'm glad that they did get to hear from their grandfather about Karen before he passed away. It was a good thing for both of them for him to share her story. I'm sure it must have been so difficult for him having her fall while with him, it must have been a heavy burden for him to bare, and with her süicide too, heartbreaking. It's sad that OP is the only one in their family who remembers her 😔, I hope that they find peace in their memories of their aunt.

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#3

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My welsh great-grandmother had passage booked on the Titanic in 1912. She ended up not going because she "fell ill". Turns out it was actually an out-of-wedlock pregnancy that gave her such bad morning sickness, she couldn't go. She lost the baby. She came the following year in 1913 and met my great-grandfather. She only told my mom (who she helped raise during the summers) who then told me.

Great-grandma getting knocked up saved an entire branch of our family tree!

sassy_steph_ , Nan Fry Follow Report

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Lisa H
Lisa H
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

She may have been glad she "fell ill" at that particular time. Wow.

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#4

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My older brother might only be my half brother. About ten or so years ago, I went out drinking with my dad for his birthday. He got hammered, and told me that when he and my mom first got together, she was still in a relationship with a really abusive guy. She got pregnant around the time that she left him, so there's about a 50/50 chance that my older brother is the other guy's biological son. I asked him if he ever thought about getting tested to find out and he said "No. I don't care what any test says - that is MY son."

He also got emotional at one point and told me he really regretted talking me out of going to school for what I originally wanted to do in favor of what I do now. Later on, he punched the glass out of a jukebox because he thought it'd be funny. The whole night was a roller coaster.

The next day, he seemed to have no recollection of telling me that bombshell about my brother and I never brought it up again. I'll never tell my brother, and I'll never tell my parents that I know about it. As a side note, it would explain a lot. My brother and I don't even look related, but we always just shrugged our shoulders whenever friends asked us how we could be siblings when we look so different. I feel the same way my dad does - he's my brother, not half-brother, no matter what any test might say. I'm at peace with the fact that I'll never really know for sure.

Cheese_Pancakes , TE3JMAN Report

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#5

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community I had an uncle who was a railroad engineer and worked the Terre Haute, Indiana to Danville, Illinois line. Never took a day off from his one day there, one day back route. At his funeral, (I was a kid and didn’t go) a strange woman came into the funeral home with some older children. No one knew who she was and finally my grandma introduced herself to the woman and asked who she was. The woman said, “I’m Mrs.so and so I’m here for my husband’s funeral.” Turns out my uncle had two families, one in Terre Haute and one in Danville. I didn’t find out about this until I was an adult. My mom, grandma, aunt and sister kept this a secret for decades.

mildlysceptical22 , curated by Gary Bridgman Report

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#6

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community This is pretty mild, but a part of my mom's side is very, very convinced they're Irish. In all the American, "kiss me I'm Irish" ways. My grandparents took a trip there. They spent a lot of time at a local pub, getting to know Irish singers and poets, my cousins have very Irish names, etc etc etc.

I took a few ancestry tests to nail down the rest of my mom's side, not a single percent Irish in any of them. The family name, common in Irish-Americans, is actually a Swiss surname that got translated at some point, according to the genealogy trace I also had done. My now deceased grandparents want their ashes spread into the Irish sea and my mom and her siblings are planning a big trip to do it. I'm taking the secret to my grave.

LaLucertola , Willis Lam Report

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#7

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My great grandma told my grandpa that the jewish girl he liked was taken to a concentration camp when in truth they fled (it is said she knew they were safe). Grandpa meets my Grandma shortly after, they get married but apparently he still talked about the other girl from time to time and that she was the one who got away and how awful it all was. Many years go by, my aunt and dad are born. Grandpa walks around town and meets the girl from back then, is totally shocked and finds out he has been lied to all this time. Grandpa got sick pretty soon after that and died when my dad was only 5 years old. My grandma later once said she believes he died of a broken heart :(

Aur3lya_175 , Jason O'Halloran Report

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#8

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My Dad had a daughter before I was born and never admitted it to anyone in the family. He was basically on his death bed when he admitted it to me. I was able to track down my half sister a few years back and we were to meet but she was very emotional about the whole thing and she backed out at the last minute. I have since left her alone.

Hamfiter , Tony Alter Report

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#9

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My mom lied to a man and told him I was his son and frequently extorted money from him by telling him she needed it to raise me.

I found out when he showed up with gifts shortly after I had moved out on my own. He had hired a PI after my mom refused to give him my contact info. He apologized for not being in my life and cried while telling me he was dying of pancreatic cancer and he didn't want to go without meeting me.

I asked my mom about it and she told me she told him that so she could get money for [illegal substances] after she left my dad.

DNA tests confirmed he was not my dad.(tested myself against the man I was always told was my bio dad)

I only ever met him the one time. I took the gifts because it was such a surreal experience I didn't know how to tell him anything other than that I forgave him.

My mom is the only other person that knows this happened.

Brilliant_Succotash1 , Benjamin J. DeLong Report

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#10

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My great-great grandfather moved from Romania to America and got married to another Romanian immigrant shortly after he arrived. Once they married he insisted they start using "American" names, only speak English in public, never return to Romania, and refrain from communicating with family in the old country.

When my great-grandmother (his daughter) was a teenager it was discovered by the rest of the family that he actually abandoned his first wife and three children in Romania and left them in extreme poverty when he came to the states and married my great-great grandmother.

Ya know, real upstanding guy.

EDIT: Wow. Wasn't expecting this many upvotes. From what I was told he was an abusive alcoholic and paranoid all the time. His mental health suffered a lot as he aged so I'm assuming guilt was factored into that. Another interesting tid-bit, my great grandmother went on to apparently become a matchmaker through her Orthodox church by helping families with young women relatives still in Romania connect with families with young men here in the US to pretty much arrange marriages so they could come state-side.

SilentBlizzard1 , Kat Grigg Report

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#11

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My mom drunkenly told me that my grandfather (who has passed) always used to sit with his back against a wall in restaurants because when he was in the army in the 50s he was [assaulted] by other soldiers. He would always make sure his back was covered in public for the rest of his life.

k_sharpie , Tauno Tõhk Report

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#12

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My great grandmother's famous pecan pie recipe is the one on the Karo bottle. I was gifted it when she died bc i went to school for baking. I noticed while making it BECAUSE IT'S ON THE BOTTLE!! I will tell no one. Maybe i told my sister though haha!

justcougit , sari Report

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relaxinandchillaxin
relaxinandchillaxin
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why not spice up the story instead?? Sounds like the company infiltrated your family to steal your great grandmothers "world famous secret recipe"??? Seems like an easy one......

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#13

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My grandma was raised in a catholic orphanage under the pretext that she lost both her parents and siblings during the Spanish Influenza. Turns out her and her dad survived, but her dad didn’t want to take care of her so he left her at an orphanage in Brooklyn and moved to Europe and started a new family.

Human_Commercial_406 , mosaic36 Report

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#14

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community A great aunt on my mom's side supposedly died of an unknown illness at age 25. I found her death certificate that listed ingestion of kerosene as the cause of death. I learned from an older relative that this aunt had discovered she was pregnant and didn't want to be. She was a very vain person and was afraid the pregnancy would ruin her body/looks. She had heard from some idiot that drinking kerosine would cause an abortion.

Etxguy , Joe Green Report

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Lily Mae Kitty
Lily Mae Kitty
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

pretty sure it was not about being vain. and here we are voting as if our lives depended on it b/c they do.

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#15

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community -My Uncle was married like 8 times and had 2 kids. Until we found out after he passed away that apparently he had like 7 kids from different relationships we didn't know about. He was a truck driver in the 90's. He drove all over the US. He had affairs with different women in other states. We found out about the other kids from Ancestry.com. I have met a couple of them.

-My Great Aunt was in a Mental Institution for most of her life. I never got to meet her. She went crazy after the love of her life was tragically killed. She was only 18 years old at the time. Her family put her in a mental institution thinking that she would only be in there for a year or so. She was in there for 30 years. The day she left there, she disappeared and no one knew what happened to her until they found her at a abandoned house. She had took her own life. Really sad 😢

Content_Pool_1391 , Debra McCraw Report

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Tiffi
Tiffi
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This was my sister's ex husband. After he died, my nephew had his DNA tested and he's got half siblings all over the country.

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#16

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My dad's biological father is his adopted father's brother ( so, his uncle ). His bio dad and his girlfriend were both underage, and she ended up having a kid. In order to keep it hush-hush, she had the kid and gave it to her boyfriends brother, who was of age, and married. My dad doesn't know this. As well, my sister is only my half sister. My parents were swingers and my mom got pregnant when they were trying for a baby, but somehow she got pregnant by someone else instead, and my dad is somewhat aware? But the real father doesn't know this, nor does my sister. It gets even crazier, they lost all contact with the guy, but my sister turned 20 and moved out to go live with her husband in a new state, and she got a job and moved around within the company, and becomes great friends outside of work with her boss, WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE HER BIO DAD

NinjaClam , Bridget Coila Report

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professormcgonagallminerva avatar
Stardust she/her
Stardust she/her
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I’m sorry but I found it hard to follow this trail. Can anyone simplify it please?

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#17

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community When my grandmother died, we found out she was married before my grandfather and had 4 kids. Her and that husband split up and just dumped the kids in an orphanage. Then she remarried later, had my dad and my aunt and just never mentioned the other kids at all.

PersonMcNugget , saritarobinson Report

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#18

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community The secrete ingredient in the white chilli is franks hot pepper sauce. Would be disowned for this information.

Positive_Buddy1025 , delish Report

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#19

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My great uncle essentially ran a secret society in my hometown for many years with his “friends” and even some of my family members. They would screw over a lot of people and run away with the money they managed to make, and this went on for many years until the government came looking for money that he owed when he took out a loan to build a massive bar & grill. And from there the whole thing came crashing down

To add insult to injury, my grandfather (his brother) was acting mayor at the time and had no knowledge of this, so to say “S**t hit the fan” would be the understatement of the century…

Phant0m640 , Herry Lawford Report

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Julia Mckinney
Julia Mckinney
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow!! I'd like to know what happened to everyone afterwards. Jail? Massive fines? People running off, changing their names and starting new lives in a different place? What??

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#20

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community Every single one of my uncles is currently having an affair.

RunFaster481 , Stephanie Young Merzel Report

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Joshua Moore
Joshua Moore
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm an uncle, I'm not having an affair. I'm very much in love with my significant other.

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#21

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My great grandparents were high school sweethearts and the only role models I'd ever had for a relationship since my grandparents and parents are divorced and hate each other. Then my mom tells me that my great grandma had an affair and that's why one of my grandma's sisters isn't like the others. So, there goes that.

Symnestra , Julie F Report

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kyrie24 avatar
VodkaInMySweetTea
VodkaInMySweetTea
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The fact that there was a significant mistake made - and all the heartbreak and challenges that come with that, including a child - and yet they worked to save their relationship, and were still (presumably happily) together while you were growing up... that makes them some pretty good relationship role models in my eyes.

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#22

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community My mother had an affair on my father that he doesn’t know about way before he had an affair on her that blew up the family.

Alternative_Shame_73 , meghan dougherty Report

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Debbie
Debbie
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If they had spoken they might have gone for an open marriage. Or peacefully agreed to separate. It sounds like this wasn't peacefull at all unfortunately.

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#23

23 Skeletons In Families' Closets, Unveiled By Members Of This Online Community Having no solid proof that my niece has to be the daughter of a very famous musical artist very active today. Knowing my sister in law is a huge fan of his and that she and my little brother were both cheating on each other during that time. Looking at my niece she looks exactly like the person I’m talking about. Same eyes, chin, lips, and smile, crooked teeth, same jaw, and hair too. Looks nothing like my brother at all. I’m convinced this person is the her father especially when you put pictures of them side by side.

Tomphiii , Archie Gleason Report

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