Help please - upset relatives

[suttontrust]

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.

[JAP]

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

[Sooziecats]

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

[dwalin]

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

[sandiep]

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