“My Great Grandfather Found His Wife In Bed With The Milkman”: People Share 30 Of The Coolest And Funniest Facts From Their Family History

The only famous relative I have was barred by an act of Parliament from ever again being the warden of a prison due to massive corruption. So you have any idea how corrupt you would have to be to be specifically called out for corruption in 18th century Britain? It's kind of impressive in its own way

Grandpa was shot in the head on the russian front (he was german).

He was declared dead and put on a pile of dead bodies. A friend of him (who grew up in the same village as my grandpa) went to the pile to give him the last goodbye. And he saw my grandpa was shaking a little bit. He yelled at the doctors "this man is not dead!".
And yea, the doctors got him out of the pile and actually rescued him. But they couldn't remove the bullet in his head. It was too dangerous.

So my grandpa lived with this bullet in his head his whole life.

He was not able to make a driver's license due to the risk of epileptic shocks.
He named his son (my father) after the man who rescued him.

My great grandfather grew up super poor in Italy. He had an infection of some sort in his arm that would kill him if untreated, and because he was poor, it was left untreated. So one day, at age 14, he and a few friends found a bottle of liquor, a tree stump, and an axe. The only pictures I've seen of him, he only has one arm

My great great great grandfather was part of the first generation of black people to be free in my state

edit: my great great grandfather* I added an extra great on accident

My grandfather owned a hardware store in downtown Bogotá when the April 9th 1948 riots.

People burned and looted places.

He had to lay down among dead bodies simulating being dead to survive and not being killed.

During the Partition of India in 1947, my grandmother and her family (Sikh) lived in a village with Hindus, Sikhs and 1 Muslim family.

During the brutality of it all, people in the village wanted to attack the Muslim family but my great grandfather intervened and stopped them from being hurt. He then helped them leave the village to make their way to Pakistan from the Indian side of the Punjab where my grandmother’s village was. We still do not know to this day what happened to the Muslim family and whether they survived.

My great grandfather came home early from work one day to find his wife in bed with the milk man(or mail man. I can’t remember). Either way, there was a scuffle and the milk/mail man went out the bedroom window and died 2 days later in the hospital. This happened in the same house that I grew up in because the house was in my family for a very long time.

I tried looking up news articles and such on the incident but was never able to find anything. This was a common discussion at parties with my family and I always tried to learn more about my great grandfather. Turns out he was an undertaker. Go figure.

Great grandad was a jewish shop owner in Italy in the1930s. One day a fascist March turns into a lynch mob chasing a communist. The communist slips away, finds my family's shop, and begs for shelter because jews are known commie sympathizers. But a gun welding fascist comes to the store looking for him, because he knew it was owned by jews and jews are known commie sympathizers. My great grand dad denies hiding the commie, but the fascist says if they don't bring him out immediately he'll shoot my great grand dad. So great grand dad snatches the gun and kills the fascist on the spot. He got acquitted for self defense but they had to escape Italy 24 hrs after the acquittal, the fascist party graciously sent a notice allowing them 24 hrs to leave before they killed all the men of the family.

I have two that are somehow connected

My great grandfather, during WW2, lived through some wild s**t. He was sent to gulag and escaped from the transport somewhere in today's Belarus. He then returned home on foot, to the middle of northern Poland where we live today (if you want more exact location, google where my town, Tczew, is). After few years, in middle of which my grandpa was born, he was taken to serve in German army. He was based somewhere in Norway and escaped once again, but not before he blew up the warehouse with weapons he was kinda in charge off.

On a lighter, funny af note. He was one of 13 children. His mother (my great great grandmother) named her second child Stanisław and named her last child... Stanisław. She had so many children that she forgot she already used that name lol. The second Stanisław sadly didn't live through infancy

My grandma (mother's side) was abandoned in an orphanage by my great grandmother because she wanted to run off and marry another man, and he would not take her children. So my great grandfather, who was in the army during WW1, came to see them and promised to come back after the next battle. It was the somme, he died.

The same grandmother did not know how old she was, by the time she obtained a copy of her birth certificate later in life, she found out she was a year older than she thought she was.

My Dad's Grandfather was an advertising artist, semi famous at the time, there is an original of his passed down in our family, it is with my dad's oldest brother now. It is of a boy running down a famous road in my northern city past a famous theatre still being used to this day.