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Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: FWaters on Wednesday 26 October 05 14:43 BST (UK)
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I have been researching my other half's family history since last Christmas and have ensured that all the information I find out has been copied for him, his sister and their half sister. This information is derived from census returns, archives, record offices, certificates and from conversations with these three people.
We have now been contacted by a very angry daughter of the half sister who cannot bring herself to speak to us because her mother has been so upset by the family history we have presented to her. Apparently her mother, who is 80, cannot sleep she is so distressed by things we had put in the folders of documentation we sent her which are 'just hearsay and cannot be verified now'.
We are horrified that we have upset her. Not for anything would we have done so. We asked if they wanted the information and the answer was yes.
Never would we have sent it if we'd known this would be the outcome.
The only things that could possibly have upset her are comments in conversations I had with the sister. Obviously there must be something in the transcriptions of these conversation that has caused offence. Now I'm devastated - it's all my fault! I'm the one who did the research, put the information together and sent it to her. I should have been more careful. It looks like I've caused a family rift when all I really wanted to do was bring everyone together and ensure that all sides of the family had access to the history. I feel so dreadful that I've caused this.
What's worse if that we passed the folders over 5 months ago, and were totally unaware of any problem until now and we have not been told exactly what has upset her.
Hopefully no-one else has been as stupid as I obviously have, but if anyone has any experience of such a situation or ideas of how we can smooth things over, I'd be very grateful.
Many thanks
Fiona
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Hi Fiona
I'm really sorry that the results of your research has caused problems within the family. I imagine you are right that it stems from something transcribed from the oral histories you have taken-one person's recollection of events may be quite different from another's with passage of time, or they may think they remember dates which put a different slant on history. You might consider writing a letter to the half sister apologising for the distress as clearly you did not intend it, and perhaps indicate that any research of family history only provides one version of the 'truth' based on memories and scraps of records
I'd been thinking about sharing my research with the family-I'll certainly think carefully about that now
I hope you manage to calm the waters
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Hi,
Oh Dear, but please don't be upset, it isn't your fault, they wanted to know so it's theyr'e problem. Writing a letter is a good idea.
I got upset 4 years ago when I traced my Mum, she phoned me, we talked for 2 hours, then blurted out that she didn't want to hear from me again, it upset her to much, I wrote her a letter, but she returned it by registered post.
What I'm trying to say is, don't blame yourself, they just didn't face problems and upsets, much too easy for them to sweep them under the carpet. Good Luck, don't give up. Lyz
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My sympathies. I haven't gotten to this stage yet, but have already been worrying about it. I was thinking of having two "versions", one for me and one that is somewhat more blandified for others, especially people I don't know very well, like newfound rellies. My personal version need only come to light on my demise.
My MIL wrote a large book about the family history and published a few years ago. She too got some serious flak from some family members. I guess the thing is that we're dealing with people's memories, and those memories have a sacred quality to them. (Otherwise, this wouldn't be nearly so interesting, now would it?)
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Hi Fiona
Write a letter and apologise for the distress the information has caused, but don't apologise for causing the distress - you've done nothing wrong. You wrote down the oral histories, presumably from the half-sister as well, and let them each have a copy as they asked. If the half-sister can't cope with something the sister has said then she needs to talk to her not have her daughter shouting at you.
Hope this doesn't put you off your research (though you'll probably not be offering to share it with the family again).
Best wishes Jan ;)
Oh and welcome to rootschat.
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Thank you all for your comments. I wish I could say I feel better, but having looked through the notes, there are some things which definitely should not have been copied to the half sister. That I sent them unintentionally does not help. I really should have been more careful and sensitive when making copies of notes done some time previously. I have no excuse, and I do feel really dreadful. We have e-mailed back with an apology, and I'm going to write a letter too, but right now I really can't stop beating myself up over it. It'll be some time before I can face doing any more research.
Thanks again, you've all been very kind and I'm sure I don't deserve it.
Best of luck with all your family histories.
Fiona
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Fiona
I have come across things during my family tree search that has on occassions upset my mother eg unknown brother before marriage of her parents etc.
I made the mistake of giving the information to my brother and his partner and they blurted it out before i could confirm the information. I took the lesson I learned from that and moved forward. You cannot control the way other people react to things, you never intended any hurt and did things out of love.
Write the letter and apologise but do not give up on searching your family history.
In the end what you find while searching your roots ,you will bring you great joy and help you find out more about yourself
SellickAust
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hi fiona
this is an awfull thing to happen to you as all you have done is present what you have found as promised to others but these people have to remember we as family historians have no control on what secrets come out of the closet
i hope you can get this sorted if not as least keep things to yourself which you feel might offend good luck
kim :)
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I had a similar experience, though not on the same scale.
When my grandmother went into a home, my mum and her sister gave me an old battered suitcase that had belonged to my grandfather. My grandmother kept all her paperwork etc in there (I had been looking after all my grandmothers paperwork for years).
Anyway, there was a lot of info in there about my grandfather, none of which I knew about as my grandfather died when I was very young, and I never knew him.
Anyway, armed with this backgroud info, I spoke to all 3 sisters (my mum and her 2 sisters) separately and made notes and then sent each one a copy of their transcript, so that they each could confirm what they had said.
I then put all this info into a report together with other info I had found from my research. It was cause for discussion, as all 3 had different points view and had different memories of their father. As a matter of principle, each disagreed with the opinion of the others.
I tried to point out that opinions are objective and personal. That you cannot disagree with an opinion. I came to the conclusion that it is MY work, they don't have to read it. And if they do and disagree, the door is wide open for them to comment and make amendments.
On the other end of the scale, I found out that my dads uncle, who got me started with all this stuff, was actually born 5 years after his dad died. It was only when I was going over the report again that I realised. I had already sent out the report to all family members. Whoops :-[
However, he was fine about it. Facts are facts and you can't change them. Not a bad attitude for an 85 year old.
I'm quite thick skinned when it comes to family disagreements, so it doesn't bother me much. I would say though, that it sounds as if your family has upset you after all the trouble and effort you went to, having consulted them first, with no ill intention. Families do however tend to fall out over the daftest things, which are laughable when you look back at them later.
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We get so engrossed in our research that it's easy to overlook the fact that someone, particularly an elderly person, might not want our version of "the truth". I've researched the family histories of several friends, and often the facts I've uncovered conflict with someone's memory of events. In my own tree, one of my half-sisters won't accept our father's naval record because she wants to believe a particular version of him. One way to minimise problems is to feed information a bit at a time to the relatives. If you get a strong reaction to anything from someone ("How dare you suggest he was jailed for burglary!") then keep that person out of the loop.
You can only grovel and hope that people will understand in time. But don't let it spoil your enjoyment of what you've achieved.
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Dear Fiona,
What has happened has happened - and, who knows, perhaps in years to come the upset family will really appreciate having the information you have given them.
If you had agreement from each person who provided an oral history that a transcript could be provided to other family members then that is that. And if not, well - it's happened so all you can do is apologise and then put it behind you.
And sometimes it's not even your own responsibility! My niece and I were very unpopular when the ages and addresses of relatives appeared in a report commissioned by a distant relative and carried out by an independent researcher. Unfortunately, the researcher had acknowledged out contributions - but what we had provided related to long past events in distant countries. However, we were blamed for providing the birthdates and addresses of living persons - which we had (quite meticulously) avoided doing! The birth dates of the relatives (they were quite elderly) were found by the researcher in the publicly available birth indexes and the addresses in electoral rolls!
Try to stop worrying about something you can't change,
Regards,
JAP
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I too have upset an elderly relative. In researching our family history I found a marriage of one on my Nans brothers, but it appears he left this lady at some point in the early 1900's and went on to have six children with a lady he never married. This information actually came from a letter his daughter in law wrote over 30 years ago to another person who it turns out has the same surname but (as yet) we cannot find the connection between the two families.
I recorded the marriage and the six children by another lady in my records. I then received a soul destroying letter from the said daughter in law telling me that as long as I or anyone else who had encouraged me to dishonour the memory of her father in law we would never be welcome in her house. This really did upset me a lot as I had no intention of causing upset to anyone - just recording the facts.
It appears - talking to some on my Dad's cousins that this information was common nowledge within the family, but obviously the daughter in law (who is now in her 80's) did not want people to know. I wrote a letter and apologised and have left it at that. I now have got over the upset and have put it behind me. What annoyed me the most was the fact that this man was my Great Uncle and is part of my family history so why shouldn't I find out about him.
Sue B
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Dear Fiona,
:) dont keep beating yourself up .when i first started doig this (not very long ago)my sister who is a bit older than me was so happy to give me her bits of information.but when on searching my maternale granparents i found that they did not marry untill the third child was born and that our nana(my sister once said was quite saintly)had been married before i came in for a lot of upset.i explained that i was new to searching and everything was exciting to pass on i dident think and that how sorry i was.i was forgiven and now we laugh about it.dont give up your research things have a way of working themselves out.
best wishes julie
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Fiona,
Please dont get upset, I guess if you like me just enjoy finding everything out about previos rellies we sometimes forget others have a rose coloured version.
I cannot do any work on my daughters husbands family because although he knows they married a little late she wont talk about it, wouldnt even let them know her wedding date for their 50th anniversary.
so dont let it stop you researching and welcome to the largest family in the world
sandie