This TikToker Shared The Craziest Family Story That You May Ever Hear: Involving Two Faked Deaths And Three Families
Emily Glankler, a history teacher and owner of the TikTok account @Antisocialstudies, went viral for sharing her bizarre family history story.
She even captioned the video, “The craziest Ancestry story you will hear today (it involved world wars and FAKE DEATHS!.”
She talked about her great grandfather, who she and her family knew as Alfred Jean Cippele.
“My dad doesn’t remember a lot about him. He died when he was pretty young,” Emily said.
“But, he does remember that he was very quiet and spoke in a strange accent that sounded vaguely Eastern European, which is weird because they always told us that his last name, my maiden name, was French or French Canadian.”
Emily then explained the “first part of the mystery,”– which began about twenty years ago when her father met another family with the last name Cippele.
This encounter already set off warning bells since the family had never met anyone with the same last name before.
Well, Emily’s father went out to lunch with the man– who was about a generation younger than him– and they got to know each other.
TikTok; pictured above is Emily Glankler in her video
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Soon after, the man began describing his own father.
“My dad thought that it sounded a lot like his grandfather. The guy just said that his father died pretty young in an oil rig explosion in east Texas,” Emily recalled. She also drew the connection that she and her family lived in east Texas.
She then discussed the second mystery– when her grandfather passed away. As his wife, Emily’s grandmother began going through his things, she found photos from World War I.
In the pictures, her great grandfather was listed under a different name– David Haimson.
“We were all like, I’m sorry, what?” Emily narrated her confusion, “So about eight years ago, my whole family brought this information to me and said since I’m a historian, I should figure this all out.”
So, Emily signed up to Ancestry.com and found out tons of family secrets. She has since saved numerous documents, reports and even made a PowerPoint presentation with her findings in true teacher fashion. But, she also summed up the story for her followers.
“So my great grandfather was born David Haimson, and he immigrated when he was very young to New York with his family. They were Jews escaping persecution from Russia/Eastern Europe,” Emily said. He got married, left to fight in World War I, and never returned– or so they thought.
“But he does return,” Emily said while pointing at the camera, “Basically, at some point, he stopped using the name David Haimson and took on the name Alfred Jean Cippele.”
She does not know exactly why her great grandfather chose that last name, but she has a theory– some of the people in his military regiment had similar last names with different spellings. Regardless, his story only got crazier from there.
“So anyway, he showed back up in Houston and started another family– that’s the family of the guy my dad was talking to– then went up to work on the oil rigs in East Texas. He met my great grandmother, fell in love, and faked his death in an oil rig explosion,” Emily explained.
That marks two fake deaths and three families in Emily’s family history, making her family the third.
After this video went viral, garnering nearly two million views and about three-hundred thousand likes, Emily posted a follow-up video with more discoveries. There, she shows newspaper articles featuring David Haimson.
“So this was in 1919, either during or after his World War I enlistment,” Emily said while showing the first news clipping. It read, “David Haimson was arraigned on four counts of larceny by means of alleged worthless checks.”
Then, one year later, in New Hampshire, David Haimson was cited in a newspaper again. It said that he was arrested for “passing a worthless check” at a Puritan Store. Apparently, David wrote to the store afterward and “was sorry for what he did.”
Emily acknowledged that none of this new information “dramatically” changed the story she is putting together just yet. But, she is still researching and piecing together the mystery of her great grandfather. If you would like to keep up with Emily’s journey into her family history, she has continued to post updates on her TikTok.
And, after hearing her wild story, you may be interested in learning about your own family’s history. Who knows, it could be as puzzling and drama-filled as Emily’s.
@antisocialstudies This is my go-to teacher story to get all my kids’ attention instantly. @ancestry #myancestrystory #storytime #fakedeath #mistakenidentity #history
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