After an experience I had some years back I now firmly believe that the best policy is truth regardless.
What happened was this; I was always aware that there was a mystery about my father's parents, and many years ago when I was a boy my mother showed me my grandfather's death certificate, (1903 at the age of 75, Dad born in 1899!), and my father had told me that he had been orphaned at the age of 2.
It wasn't until I started researching in the mid 1990s that I got to grips with things. I found my grandfather in the 19th century censuses living with his then wife, and no children of their own, though they did foster. It came as no surprise to find that my grandfather had remarried when his first wife died in 1894 at 70, but what was surprising was that my grandmother had been born in 1859, and was 35 at marriage, though dates were carefully massaged to reduce the age gap to 20 years. 5 months after the wedding my aunt (Dad's sister was born!, making up for lost time!)
But I then discovered that my grandmother died in 1901. When I got the certificate, authenticated copy at Boston Registry Office, the registrar warned me to prepare for a shock, she described it as "not nice; gruesome". It certainly was my grandmother had cut her throat with an open razor!! This had never been mentioned in the family "not in front of the children" being the order of the day. Dad was brought up by her sister his aunt, had service as a boy soldier, and afterwards returned to Boston and worked on the footplate at Boston loco.
Why this is relevant is because everyday he would see the house where it happened he was apparently in the room as a toddler at the time, when he went and came home from work. If he was on a shunting turn he would spend around 8 hours a day on a shunting engine immediately outside the house, and at least twice a week he would pass the institute where the inquest was held.
After this find and concluding other research, I then went to see my 95 year old mother, told her what I had found; though she did not confirm it, it was obvious from her demeanour that she had known, but never let on.
It was a great shock to me, and from then on I decided it was best for so far as possible to be completely open with all research no matter how harrowing it seems at the time.
