Family legends

Once a month the RootsWeb people send out a little mailing. The most recent one seeks people's stories of whether they've been able to prove or disprove any family's fables, such as (fill in the blanks):

--Kidnapped by (_____).
--Stowed away on ship to (_____).
--Disowned by rich or noble family because (_____).
--Eloped and/or ran away with (_____) to (_____).
--Proved that I am (am not) related to (_____) -- a famous person.
--My black sheep ancestor really was a (horse thief, scoundrel, etc.).

These are odd legends to claim, I think. It does seem to be true that, for any family long settled in a particular part of the nation, almost all the old settlers and their descendants are related, either by blood or by marriage, including or excluding sworn enemies.

There's at least one fairly uncommon surname in my family history. We were always told that those other people were not our relatives, but it turns out that they were, and not all that distant. On one side of the family, nearly everybody followed a certain occupation but many people remembered by name are recalled as being known for some additional calling: water-witcher, horse-trader, fiddler. This would be fun to confirm or not.

In the nineteenth-century wills that have turned up, the eldest son is always charged with supplying certain items for the remaining life of his widowed mother: firewood, eggs, a cash allowance, milk and cheese, and so on. There's often one person explicitly disinherited or bequeathed a token amount. Why? There's nobody left who knows.