Have you ever..felt a little uncomfortable..

[eadaoin]

- alcoholic great-aunt& uncle - will probably include this soon, since that generation are all gone.

I think it's ok to leave a detail out, but not to include false details.

Would you put someone's alcoholism into a tree? Where would you put it and why? I ask because it's not something I've considered before.

Maybe I won't put it in . . I included it in pencil because it weighed on my 90-year-old aunt's mind. It was she who started me off on family history and was very enthusiastic, but she burst into tears whenever she talked about her uncle B and his wife . .no violence, but steady drinking and disorganisation and the rest of the family holding it together for the kids . .

[rachelralph]

so im reading all these posts and im thinking to myself, surely it doesnt matter?
are any of us related to a murder/rapist/drug dealer etc, in our generation. lots of us have people in our family who we would rather not be related to but we are. i for one have a member of my family who has served jail time ove rand over again. i wish not to associate with him but i will not deny to anyone im related to them. what because he shares some dna with me i have somehow caught his 'badness' surely it is nurture rather than nature in this and most cases? its like saying you wont admit your related to someone who is  homosexual. its not catching, nor does it define who i am.
sorry getting a but heavy for a sunday morning. i just find it so odd that you wouldnt record something in your tree because it might offend someone. it doesnt define who you are or anyone related to you is, its just a story, a memory.

[Andrew Tarr]

Here's a different example. I know it would hurt my (deceased) grandfather deeply if he knew that, as a result of me accessing his military record, I know that he got syphilis from an encounter with a stranger while he was married to my grandmother. I don't mind knowing this but I am sure that, if my brother were doing the research, he might neglect to mention that particular fact and he would definitely not record it anywhere for future generations to learn (to protect our Grampy's pride and so as not to dishonour his memory).

This example illustrates how personal the decision is.  We would all (I guess) assume that this grandfather would hope his misdemeanour would remain hidden.  So the decision may hinge on how the living remember him - if we think of him as an old rogue, who cares? or if not, we might collude in keeping shtumm.  If it's an unrelated politician though, no holds barred 

Of course our actions can't hurt them, once dead - so it's just choosing whether to risk offending the living, and asking what purpose might be served by revealing the facts.

[panda40]

On a more recent note my niece got married last year and wanted photos of herself when she was a young child. Unknown to me her real father who walked out on her and her mother took all her baby photos and she had none to put on a family PowerPoint to be displayed at the wedding reception. I gave her the photos I had and also broached the subject that I had photos of her with her biological father(she sees her step dad as her father as he has raised her). It was a difficult conversation and only one I felt we could have once she was an adult. I passed these photos onto her as well. They belong to her and if she wishes to share them with her children in the future that is her choice.
Regards panda

[Guy Etchells]

Guy a question.

This is not whether there is or isn't.  Would you list someones same-sex attraction  , even if they have asked you to keep it secret as it would hurt a living family member?

I understand its an hypothetical but I want to see where , if any, your boundaries are?

I applaud your approach but I wouldn't follow it.

That seems at face value a simple question but it actually contains many unknowns.

A consideration would be whether the person had divulged the information to me in confidence or whether I had discovered the information through some other means.

If I had discovered the information in the course of research I would not be breaching any trust that the information would be kept secret.

As I live in a country where same sex attraction is not illegal that would remove many obstacles, but if I lived in a country where same sex attraction was illegal that in itself cause may problems (such as legal duty, consequences etc.).

There is therefore no legal duty to reveal the information and no legal ramifications involved for that “someone”.

The next consideration would have to be the relationship between “living family member” and myself.
If for instance the “living family member” was my wife that would be different than if the “living family member” was not connected with me.

It would also depend on whether the person was in a same sex relationship with their partner or not.

These are just four considerations of many that I would have to make before coming to my decision.
What I could say is there would be no reason to divulge the information for simply salacious reasons.

Cheers
Guy

[Andrew Tarr]

I suppose on this thread I can reintroduce the question which is now in my tagline: (Wanted: Charles Percy Liversidge).  Try as I might, I can't find out what happened to my great-uncle after early 1903, when he was in Gore's Liverpool Directory as a Supervisor of Agents at the Lancs & Yorks Insurance Company - a respectable position.  Of course there are all sorts of possible explanations for a disappearance, but family folklore from a usually reliable source - sadly now dead - claimed that he 'put his head in a gas oven'.  If that were true there should be a findable record?

In 1901 he was unmarried aged 28.  To amuse ourselves we invented a scenario saying he was gay and was caught fiddling the books.  I doubt we will find out, but I would just like 'closure', as is often said these days.

[andycand]

Hi

For my in depth research I have basically started from my grandparents who were all born in the 1870s. I have bare bones for my parents, uncles and aunts (all deceased) and myself who is the only living person in my tree. This means that if I find anything of a delicate nature there is at least one clear generation between that and the living. Others may disagree with my approach but as far as I'm concerned it is my tree so I will do it my way.

We may be aware of, or we may discover whilst researching, sensitive information from more recent times and the question is what do we do about it. In my case I do nothing but others will argue that it should be included. I'm sure that many times it may not be an issue because it turns out everybody knew but what if they didn't? How will people directly impacted behave? Do we have a right to potentially turn other peoples lives upside down? I say no.

Andy

[pinefamily]

Regarding the same sex issue, let me ask this: would you record that an ancestor was heterosexual?

[Andrew Tarr]

Regarding the same sex issue, let me ask this: would you record that an ancestor was heterosexual? 

In the period we are usually discussing, (a) marriages were always heterosexual and (nearly always) meant that the partners were, and (b) homosexuality was generally illegal.  So implying that the hetero-/ homo- choice was a balanced one seems to me disingenuous and slightly provocative.

Of course things are now different, but in family trees we can presume that married people were heterosexual and single ones may have been.  But for my grandmother's generation (born in the 1870s) a serious imbalance in the sexes developed because of mass slaughter in various places, and for some no acceptable men were available.