Question for experienced genealogists?

Question

How do you deal with something you have found out through research that is extremely difficult to know - especially if not far back in time and looks like a family secret that you were not meant to find out about. I know you have to learn to take the "good" with the "bad" or no point in doing genealogy in the first place. But some things, especially nearer in time, are more difficult to deal with, perhaps. Your views. Thanks.

Answer 1

If you must deal with it, do so gently as possible.  If the information is 'critical' to your research...sometimes it can be a painful disclosure.  Rest assured, I'd wager most (if not all) families have hidden secrets...some a ways back, and others in the recent past.  So, take heart, you're not alone.

Answer 2

The obvious ones are that someone had to get married, someone had a child out of wedlock, someone was adopted and never knew, someone had an affair (with or without producing children), someone committed incest or bigamy, someone was hung, someone died in a drug deal or someone had an abortion.

I'd say record it somewhere privately, if you must; in a letter you leave with your attorney to be opened after you die, perhaps. You could just ignore it. Let a genealogist 100 years from now discover it. Don't publish it, ever, and blur the facts as much as you can. For instance, if someone gets married in June and delivers a healthy 8-pound child in November, record the marriage and birth years but not month and day.

Leave "cause of death" blank. Make the father of the child born of incest "Unknown".

Answer 3

I did my mother-in-law's family history for her and I found a really , heartbreaking secret in her family. It happened in 1933, she has come to terms with it but it really upset me. She asked me to do some more research on her behalf which I did, it wasn't has bad as was first thought, but it was bad enough. You just have to accept that it doesn't matter what we do now, we cant undo what's already been done.

Answer 4

I belonged to one group that actually had a rule that members were not ALLOWED to investigate any out-of-wedlock birth until 70 years after the fact.  Important in my case since my grandfather was illegitimate.  I did eventually (when he was in his 70's) get to meet his biological father's sister.  At first she denied that any such birth had taken place.  Then she said the baby had died.  However, when I told her that the baby was my grandfather and that I didn't want to bring harm to anyone she actually showed me a picture of the biological father.  My grandfather looked exactly like his father!  She also told me more about the family.

I also used to do work for other people and I once heard that a particular female met her husband while she was visiting her sister.  Sister owned a brothel.  That information is not recorded anywhere except in my memory.

Discretion is important.

Answer 5

You record the fact of what you have found, keep it with your records, but don't actually enter the information onto your "tree". You cannot alter what has occurred in the past, but if it is likely to cause hurt or embarrassment to others still living, it is best kept quiet, until perhaps the person or people concerned can no longer be affected. As the saying goes "keep your own counsel", difficult sometimes, but really, I think, the only option.

Answer 6

Such issues are a common part of genealogy.. and way more common than people like to think.  It does become way easier if you are talking about scandals or such that happened in the mid 1800s for example.  More recent stuff does affect persons.

My approach for genealogy is almost like a scientist.. who observes and records facts.. but there is no judgement good/bad to them.  You cannot do genealogy if you have something pre conceived to prove.. you find the facts, as they are, hopefully with an open mind.

Recent things are often hard to "shove" into that box, but we try the best we can.  Everyone is human, and what has happened, cannot be changed.  Forgiven, hopefully.. especially when right now, the relationship and caring might have to take priority over historical facts.