Have you ever..felt a little uncomfortable..

[Rosinish]

If I find something such as a relative "charged & convicted" of manslaughter in regard to his own mother (which I have).....He was imprisoned

I didn't set out to find this but came across it by pure chance on "google" as the family have a very unusual surname. I knew where the family were from but didn't know much about them so was idly surfing with the surname & area when I found this info. much to my horror & disbelief.

However, had my father been alive when I did find it.........no, I would not have told him as he was too old to be given such shocking news about such a close relative & I would not have hurt my own father in that respect. My father definitely knew nothing of this as he had no access to the internet & our close relatives (in the country where it occured) had already passed away & by the time of the conviction & imprisonment my father had already passed away but I still would not have given my father such devastating news as the shock of it would have been too much for him.


Annie

This reply reinforces my belief that we as family historians have a moral duty to be open with the information we discover.
I will explain why in a minute but first a disclaimer.

I am drawing my conclusions based on very minimal facts given in the original posting above. We must be aware that further research into the facts of the case and the relationships within the family could possibly cause a change in my conclusions in limited circumstances.
I also assume the writer is open to discussion of the posting as she brought it up in an open forum.

In the above situation the research has come across a case of manslaughter but we are not told whether it was voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter; on reading the post I get the feeling the writer relates the case as if it was the man murdered his mother, but that is not what the court found.

Due to the conclusion the writer reached she then decides she would have withheld the information from her father to prevent her father knowing about it.

However there is a high possibility he already knew of the incident. He could, for all we know, have been bottling it all up inside him for years and have been thankful for the opportunity to have an open discussion about it without the fear of judgement or distaste. He may even hold some information (but had not been given the chance to provide it) which could have proved the innocence of his cousin.
We don’t know.

I cases like this I think of my mother in law who gave birth to a stillborn child. It was all hushed up her family would not talk about the birth and she was left grieving alone for over 25 years. When talking to me about her daughter’s family tree she mentioned she had given birth to a stillborn baby. When I added him to the tree she was in tears, not of distress but joy that someone acknowledged her baby she had been grieving for in silence for so many years.
I was later told it was like a huge weight had been lifted from the family, everyone had been so frightened of causing hurt they could not see the hurt and damage their silence was causing. My mil took the lack of discussion as a sign of family disapproval.

It is not easy but secrets do more damage in the long term than openness.

I think your case has no resemblance to mine....2 totally different topics

A stillborn birth is not manslaughter nor a crime worth imprisonment. Had my father's cousin been murdered by a stranger I still would have refrained from causing my father distress.

Annie

[Andrew Tarr]

If the truth is told there is less chance of half truths and stories being made up that could hurt the relatives of someone else, who was not involved.

That is true, but I don't accept that the 'truth' (however we choose to define it) must always out. It must depend on the severity of the misdemeanour or misfortune, on the personalities involved, and how many are in the circle.

I remember my mother saying I almost had a sister (I am her only child) but not any further details. I presume it was a miscarriage, not a stillbirth, as no other births are recorded. Her uncles however were not talked about, for reasons I have already mentioned in another thread.

My mother-in-law was a very nice person, but my wife says some facets of her family were simply not discussed.  So far we have discovered no skeletons beyond the common peccadilloes such as shotgun weddings.  It might have been more titillating for us, but I'm not sure that the benefits would necessarily have outweighed the embarrassment?

On the debit side, a very good friend of ours was unaware of his father's existence for about 50 years because (I believe) he suffered badly in WW2 so that his wife abandoned him to an institution.  The son traced him (genealogy I think) and sought him out there.  I'm not sure of a pleasant way to do that for all concerned.

[Guy Etchells]

I think your case has no resemblance to mine....2 totally different topics

A stillborn birth is not manslaughter nor a crime worth imprisonment. Had my father's cousin been murdered by a stranger I still would have refrained from causing my father distress.

Annie

I was not saying they were the same I was trying to explain how people can unintentionally get hurt when things are not discussed.

Cheers
Guy

PS instead of using pretty colours to add text to another persons posting why not simply use the [/quote] tag to end the quote and allow a comment to be added.

The way you have done it looks as if I have added some of the the remarks you have not even been consistent in the colours used with the result it looks as if different people have added the accentuated comments

[jbml]

On the Lawyer / Sawyer thing ... might I (as a lawyer myself) just observe that if you THINK the occupation is recorded as "lawyer" ... it is almost certainly NOT.

Because, you see, we do not describe our occupation as "lawyer", and never did.

Some of us are solicitors, some are barristers-at-law (or "utter barristers", to give them their correct title!) more usually simply decribed as barristers, and there used to be attorney-at-law, proctors and advocates. There are obviously professors of law out there, as well. And ALL, when asked to record their occupation, would, will, did and still do, give their correct professional title. Which is never "lawyer".

So if you think you've got a lawyer in the family ... I'm afraid you've probably got a sawyer.

Look on the bright side, though ... I've yet to hear a sawyer joke, have you?

[3sillydogs]

It is always difficult to decide  who to tell what to.  When I first started researching years ago, I found a post that was looking for my family.  It turned out that I had a cousin that I didn't know existed, she had been given up for adoption by my aunt and  the whole thing was hushed  up.  My grandmother died thinking her daughter's secret was safe, and it probably would have been if no-one started digging into the family.  It turns out that other members of the family had also seen this and been in contact with her, but pronounced her a fraud and had no further contact. Because I chose to stay in contact with her, the family have had not further contact with me.  She had too much information and the family resemblance cannot be denied.

My grandmother also passed away believing that the fact that she had my father and his sister before she married was also well buried and would have been if they had not needed proof of paternity for an ancestral passport.  Amongst the papers was grandma's marriage cert.  To say that my dad was horrified was an understatement, being of that generation that such activities were frowned upon.  But now with more digging I have another cousin and it looks as if my dad and his siblings may have had one that they did not know about.(still working on that one with new cousin)

The point is the truth will out, it just depends on how it is dealt with, the information is out there and will be found if folk like us look for it.  It just is up to us to be sensitive as to how we disperse this information...............

But I do record it all..............

[Josephine]

I've 3 or 4 things that aren't common knowledge .
- a marriage after 3 children, who are still alive. I presume they know, but they've never told their cousins . . so I left the date out in my computer version, but it's written in in pencil on my own print-out.
- a distant cousin in prison recently - haven't decided this one yet - why would I upset his siblings maybe?
- 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.

Best regards,
Josephine

[LizzieW]

I've put my 2 x g.grandfather's alcoholism into my tree, but then it wasn't a secret.  My mum told me when I was only a child, long before I thought of researching my family tree, that his wife was wealthy when they married (I've proved that to be true, she was left houses and other things in a will by an elderly lady) and that her husband drank away all her money.  If that wasn't proof enough, his death certificate rather proves it, he died of Congestive Apoplexy caused by excessive drinking, which was the conclusion at an Inquest.

I've put the information about my 2 x g.grandfather in the notes my tree program has for each person, and the cause of his death is, likewise, shown on my tree.

[Josephine]

LizzieW, if his drinking hadn't had an effect on his finances and hadn't played an obvious role in his death, do you think you still would have noted it?

To what extent do people include undesirable or unpleasant traits/addictions/etc. in their trees?

I saw an online tree once that pertained to a distant relative; as I looked through it, the notes contained info on some individuals that went something like this: family lore has it that he was a violent drunk who beat his wife; she and her daughter haven't spoken in years because the daughter is a lesbian (this was about someone who was probably still living); he was bad-tempered, so no wonder the marriage was unhappy; and so on.

I've been researching one of my g-g-grandfathers who seems to have gotten into trouble with the law a number of times due to excessive drinking: he'd drink and then sometimes he became violent and other times he was rowdy enough to get charged with disturbing the peace. In his case, I would mention it in my notes for him because of the way I learned about it, but I hadn't thought to include that info on other relatives who had drinking problems.

I'll have to give this some thought.

Best regards,
Josephine

[pinefamily]

Josephine,
You have raised some interesting points there. Recording facts, pleasant or otherwise, is one thing; behaviours, attitudes, addictions, etc. are another. I do record "family stories" as such, but as yet haven't had to record an "unpleasant" one.
That tree you found is a bit of poor form though.