RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Erato on Thursday 17 January 13 00:00 GMT (UK)
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"The black sheep, the skeletons in the closet these days are celebrated, if anything, because we have become more open-minded and flexible"
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0so1/
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Just thought I'd share this article.
I still remember the very first "secret" I found while researching my family. :o
Deb
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324734904578241822679163276.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324734904578241822679163276.html)
Moderator Comment: Topics merged
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Google says link is broken ??? ???
Dawn M
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There shouldn't be a space in the link, try this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324734904578241822679163276.html
Alexander
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Thanks Alexander for the correct link. I blame the ancestors for that one!! ;D
Deb
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"The black sheep, the skeletons in the closet these days are celebrated, if anything, because we have become more open-minded and flexible"
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0so1/
You need to have a certain type of mindset with family history, when turning up illegitimacy...Oooh ! Criminality ... Ooh-er !! you have to remind yourself, you will find what is there no more no less.
I have a saying - There is no good - There is no bad - There is only the truth, and people who honestly can't handle that, shouldn't start in the first place ::)
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Interesting artical.........the good the bad whatever our ancestors did or were is I think what makes researching them so very interesting.............we also have to remember how differant and hard life was in earlier days for those ancestors like mine who were not well to do........
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There is no good - There is no bad - There is only the truth, and people who honestly can't handle that, shouldn't start in the first place
I think that's a bit harsh. I knew when I started out that there was a secret or two to uncover but one particular document really took the wind out of my sails. I found that I was angry and ultimately very sad for the person concerned. I'm over it now but at the time it was very upsetting and I consider myself to be a pragmatic kind of person.
Suey
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I didn't mean it to sound harsh Suey, but pragmatic definatley !
The emotional side of the brutal reality of life we all turn up in our research is something none of us unless you have tanned leather for skin can escape, i've been near to tears on ocassion.
I was talking of the kind of thing which i suspect you did turn up, which many possibly through shame put their reseach down, and never pick it up again.
If an injustice has been done to a relative, it likley would provoke strong emotions in me, and whether or not guilty of some hideous crime - whatever would not in any way provoke feelings of shame on me or my family.
I was doing some research some years back for a lady whose Gt Grandfather was an officer in the RMLI, i was suprised to find he had been Court Marshalled, and dishonourably discharged, his crime ? he shot his mouth off in the officers mess about the way the general staff were running the war, Brave man i say ! I would have been proud of him, She was mortified, and didn't want me to find out any more.
I also have a relation - a first cousin twice removed, who was a Lieutenant in the 10th Scottish rifles, he cracked up under the persistant shelling, other officers didn't most of them were killed at some point.
I can tell you now if he was a rank and file squaddie he likley would have been court marshalled, given the criteria they applied then, subsequent medical Boards - several of them in England and Scotland sympathised with him, and gave him periods of leave running concurrently, so that he never saw the front again, and eventually transferred him, and promoted him to Captain as a Railway transport officer.
He stated quite clearly in a letter to one board that if they sent him back to the front he would crack again under fire.
In another letter he is complaining that he hasn't recieved payment for his travelling expenses, and stays in top - and i do mean top London hotels, - the Strand and the Connaught, to name two.
I don't think he was neccesarily treated with undue benevolence, but it angered me when i thought of all the men who in the same situation as he were not.
Lets call a spade a spade here - do i think he was a Coward - well given the criteria that they judged men of lower rank - yes i do, but only as the word would be applied to other men of lower rank then.
Do i feel ashamed of him ? No most definatley not, every man has a point at which he will break under those circumstances, it is not for me to judge him, condemn him or feel the need to be ashamed of him. Would i stop researching him no definatley not, in fact my research on him still continues - trying to find where he's buried he died in East Africa in 1938. It's my family history, it is what it is, i couldn't change it, nor would i want to.
Hope that little lot gives you more of an idea where i'm coming from Suey, sometimes i'm not that good at getting my point over the way i intended LOL !
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Hi Standfast - occasionally a short line of text can be misconstrued, my apologies ;D
Suey
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I'm afraid I shall be a bit of a pedant here and say that it's actually Court Martial, and the plural is Courts Martial (ie Military Courts).
It does rather sound as if the officer 'played the system', but it always makes my heart bleed to think what happened to 'other ranks' under the same circumstances.
Go and visit the Shot at Dawn memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield.
Take a big hanky, there is a handy seat where you can have a good cry. I'm not exaggerating, my eyes are filling with tears just picturing it!
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Oops ! ::) you're quite right rancegal ! - and i should know better ! :-X
I actually got into a very protracted debate on another forum, many having differing views on the subject, and all heartfelt - it did get very very heated ! It's a very emotive subject for sure.
I've read some of the Courts Martial papers relating to some of the shot at dawn cases, and as you say the subject provokes strong emotions.
My view point has always been that whether or not they were guilty by the standards of military Law at the time, at least in the cases of those who were executed you'd be hard pushed to find even by considering the standards of military law at the time, anything that resembled a fair trial. >:(
There are though some cases which on the face of it ( by the standards of military law then ) were correctly brought before the courts, it's the manner in which they were prosecuted that i've always had issue with.
Below i've pasted a link to the video of a lecture on the subject of Harry Farr that you might find interesting.
The Lecture is given by Professor Simon Wessely at Gresham College.
It is in my opinion a very objective view of the whole sorry case. you can also download the video from the page.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/shell-shock-or-cowardice-the-case-of-harry-farr
Let me know what you think.
Standfast
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On the wifes side, it was accepted that one couple were from Northern England, or Scotland.
When I did the research, I found that there were convicts sent out to Australia in the 1830's ,1840's, from Ireland :o :o
I told another in the family, but not the Mil, as she was to frail at that time to be able to accept the convict aspect.
Our reaction was, these things happen, facts come ahead of family stories, but telling those involved depends on circumstances.
A Chesters
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I found reports in several papers (written in scandalised tones) of my Great Grandmother running off with the lodger in the 1880's and leaving 7 children. A cousin was horrified and told me I "should stop looking now". Needless to say I'm not! Like it or not, that was what happened and to me even if we find out things that surprise or upset us it helps to flesh out these names on our family trees as real people.
One of hubby's best finds was the relative who bought a shop and inherited a package that had been left in a cupboard that turned out to contain a mummified body!
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i am positive that i have unearthed a bigamous marriage and a resultant child, however, should i inform the person who i "know" that is, i am in contact with? its a family member and it makes his brother his half brother. would he want to know? silence is golden and all that.
the pink painter (pseudonym for this post)
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i am positive that i have unearthed a bigamous marriage and a resultant child, however, should i inform the person who i "know" that is, i am in contact with? its a family member and it makes his brother his half brother. would he want to know? silence is golden and all that.
the pink painter (pseudonym for this post)
Hard to know. :) :)
When I discovered that my aunt was really my cousin, it was left to me to let her three children know (they were asking about the FH) - one reacted with "Isn't that interesting" and went off to phone his cousin who had just become his uncle (!); the younger girl said it didn't really matter to her, her mum was still her mum; the older girl hasn't talked to any of us ever since !!
Dawn M
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What have I found.....a ggggrandmothers suicide ,a gggrandfathers illegitimate son who is down as a servant on theg census,agggrandfather who was a bigamist not once but twice and was tried at the Old Bailey........they all add some interest to my tree .I wish I could find more.
Ringrose
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My sister , chatting to a lady at a "posh" dinner party recently- (I never get invited to that sort of thing thankfully) told one of the guests that I had discovered that our g grandfather and g g uncle had "done time" back in 1880. The lady recoiled in shock. Huh? My reaction on being told - It happened 130 years ago, get a life woman!
All the descendants of this line are aware of my findings and not one of the has batted an eyelid. Its just an interesting part of the family history.
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Some secrets are easier to come to terms with than others.
My gt grandmother died when she was 30 for the want of antibiotics (cellulitis of the tongue) leaving six children under ten years of age. My grandmother, who was five at the time, was sent to live with an aunt (alcoholic) and uncle who were childless, where she was abused by said uncle. Eventually she became pregnant. Fortunately, by this time she was courting grandad and managed to get him to the registry office just 10 days before the baby was born.
Nanna didn't tell anyone until after grandad had passed away and she was 99.
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People and their reactions are almost as interesting as researching family history!
Many are not aware of actual history and their reactions therefore to family history are tainted by this lack of knowledge in some cases.
What I have come across are the people who are proved wrong for having set notions; especially around religious belief, politics, diseases, etc.
What I wonder about is when did the secret become a secret? some you can realise started day one but others may just have stopped being talked about as I have sometimes had a reaction such as "do you what I had forgotten about him"
I always try to pass on information in a historic context to help people accept what they perceive to be unpalatable.
My OH's aunt was horrified that her father was arrested for stealing a feather bed, it seems to have been his only ever crime and it was within a week of his mother's death. My sincere feeling is that it was a dispute/misunderstanding over property but anyway........
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I like to think we are more understanding of people and the circumstances of their lives in the past. Illegitimacy, my family had more than their fair share but how would we feel about our ancestors committing more serious crimes.
A second cousin of my great grandfather probably killed her 5 year old son (strange tale - she was convicted but body was not her son who had disappeared). One of hubbies relations was charged but acquitted of similar crime, while other single mothers ( at the time and area) were known to have thrown their new born babies into the sea in a horrible act of desperation. Such crimes still shock and others like ggg-grandfathers's cousin who was sent for trial but discharged over a child rape can be appalling.
As an individual living a very different world I treat these as facts of my family's history, something that cannot be changed and are no reflection on me . I started researching my family to out about their lives and must take on the good and the bad.
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Stalking the dead I like to call it
If theres something the person wouldnt have liked published, do you publish ?
Considering they dont get the right of reply, which our current open mindedness would want to give them if they were alive
I often think of this when wdytya gets into slavery etc.
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I met a lady recently, interestingly as I was entering the GRO offices,
she was not there for the purpose of family history.
As I had to sign-in and state my business she started to speak to me,
and rather surprising to me she was furious at anyone "prying into the past";
she quite angrily told me what she thought of it all to both my surprise and that of the receptionist
and finished by saying and "my grandson had the nerve to put a photograph of my parents on a computer"!
I didn't stay to discuss, in fact I probably abandoned the receptionist to her if I'm honest!
To each his own but it makes you realise that it doesn't need to be as serious as murder to upset some people!
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I'm with Voltaire on this (no doubt he's really pleased about that) - "To the living we owe respect: to the dead we owe only truth."
My ancestors seem to have been either pillars of virtue or good at covering up, which is rather boring, but my wife is convinced I relish the teenage pregnancies, toyboys, suicide and syphilis in her family in Victorian times. She's right.
On the other hand my ancestors can be traced in several lines back to Norwich at least as far as Elizabeth I. That is about halfway back to the affair of St William of Norwich, when the good citizens kicked off the rumours which developed into the Blood Libel. Chances are reasonable that I've got that in the tree somewhere.
Another, rough, quote: Felipe Armanez-Ernesto said something like "the only reasonable response for anyone to the history of their country, whatever the country, is shame"