Anyone into Genealgy ?

My Mother did some digging a while back. She could only find info on my Dads family and it stopped with his Grand parents. Pretty much every one she found info on was a shady soul. Horse thief's, bank robbers & prostitutes. Most of the were hung in the late 1800's. She said that they were all from Canada. That it appeared they were the Canadian version of Jesse James. The last of them had a robed a bank in the early 1900's and hid in someones basement in Boston until there death in the 40's. There last name was Sherett. When I was in grade school our library had a few history books with the mention of the name. All of her digging was prior to the internet, she apparently paid someone to do the digging. The person put all there notes into a book for her but I have no idea what happened to it after she died.