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  1. #11
    Kiltpin
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lesley Robertson View Post
    This is my hobby, I don't have the right to upset people, especially where family relationships are concerned.
    Of course, I agree with this, but, but, but ...

    I ask myself, why we do this? Why do we spend all that money, all that time, all that energy? Are we just self indulgent voyeurs, poking our noses into things that are none of our business. Or do we genuinely have a desire to get to know our past, to get to know the people with all their frailties and their foibles and their failings?
    Do we not owe a debt to our ancestors and to all their descendants - a debt to the past and a debt to the future.
    Why painstakingly gather all that information, only to bury it again? What right have we got to deny that knowledge to others.
    All verifiable information concerning my family is in my tree. No embroidery, no weasel words, no massaging the facts - just the truth and nothing but the truth. Any and all members of my family are free to view any and all of it.

    Information does not have to be shouted from the rooftops, but it should be available to all that have an interest. After all, if we found the information, others can find it as well.

    Regards

    Kiltpin

  2. #12

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    Agreed Megan, if they ask, I'll tell them... My Mum's reaction to discovering that we had a man who'd been charged with murder at the end of the 17th century made me think hard about this (I'd thought that it was funny). Attitudes change with every generation, and we're all affected by the attitudes we grew up with.

    I have no blood relatives in my OPS, and a copy of the research goes to the relevant FHS. I'm doing it for purely selfish reasons, I enjoy the research and watching the community change over the centuries, and I have a self-imposed cutoff point just after WW1 (except for the WW2 casualties) to allow living families their privacy.

  3. #13

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    My father started the research after a strange experience where he swore that a little old lady with her hair in a bun sat on the side of his bed and told him to "Find us, Bernard".
    When my parents moved in with us he handed me a cardboard box about two feet square and filled with papers and certificates and folders and said "I'm too old for this now, you find these bl**dy actors".
    I started a family newsletter (I am an only child in a huge family of cousins) and I warned them all - in fact I put the reminder on the front page of every issue - "If you don't want to know anything that is not perfect stop reading now"
    We have murder victims and more than one bigamist and several 7 month babies as well as the usual collection of illegitimate births.
    The funny thing is that the only person who muttered about "that must be wrong" was the wife of a cousin. I have to suppose that the family she thought she married into was not as rich or as squeaky clean as she imagined.

    All we are doing is presenting facts. They don't change, in fact the only thing that changes is that now you know about it where you didn't before. It still happened and you are still the same person, just a little more knowledgeable.

    Just my four pennorth
    Sadly, our dear friend Ann (alias Ladkyis) passed away on Thursday, 26th. December, 2019.
    Footprints on the sands of time

  4. #14
    Starting to feel at home
    Join Date
    Mar 2016
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ladkyis View Post
    My father started the research after a strange experience where he swore that a little old lady with her hair in a bun sat on the side of his bed and told him to "Find us, Bernard".
    When my parents moved in with us he handed me a cardboard box about two feet square and filled with papers and certificates and folders and said "I'm too old for this now, you find these bl**dy actors".
    Did he try a theatre? (sorry couldn't resist).

    Certainly seems like an odd experience if I'm honest but if it led him to look why not.

    I started a family newsletter (I am an only child in a huge family of cousins) and I warned them all - in fact I put the reminder on the front page of every issue - "If you don't want to know anything that is not perfect stop reading now"
    We have murder victims and more than one bigamist and several 7 month babies as well as the usual collection of illegitimate births.

    All we are doing is presenting facts. They don't change, in fact the only thing that changes is that now you know about it where you didn't before. It still happened and you are still the same person, just a little more knowledgeable.

    Just my four pennorth
    I think part of the issue lies in that we assume a right to know, just because the information is there. Most people probably aren't aware the information is public, and most of the people concerned at the time could not have known the information would eventually become so easy to get hold of. Should it really be ours to research just because of a blood or marriage connection, or even no connection? Are the secrets of the past not left to the people of the past? I can understand why some people could be offended by the very concept of genealogy from that perspective - imagine if the police database became searchable in a hundred years, would everybody living now really be comfortable with their grandchildren seeing the charges they had brought against them? Depending on the ancestor, the England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935 allows us to do that to an extant?

    That said, most families are large enough now that some nosey parkers going to find it some day, would you rather it was the tenth cousin of a family members ex-wife or even worse a OPS/OPN studier, or a direct descendant of the individual concerned that brought it to light?

  5. #15
    Kiltpin
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ladkyis View Post
    All we are doing is presenting facts. They don't change, in fact the only thing that changes is that now you know about it where you didn't before. It still happened and you are still the same person, just a little more knowledgeable.
    These are the wisest words I have ever read on the subject of genealogy.

    As for 7 month babies - what a luxury! I have a cousin who's middle name is Justin. He is a writer and his pen name is Justin Tymme. His in-joke, which he loves telling people, is that he was born 23 hours after his parents were wed!

    Regards

    Kiltpin

  6. #16
    Name well known on Brit-Gen
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Cheshire UK
    Posts
    4,863

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    #2
    That said, I now see some of the past of my family very differently because I now know that two people I knew well grew up living a lie
    Know the feeling, my late mother was a closed book about her life before father. When I was 37 ish I ordered my full length birth certificate ( only had a short one as Mother & father couldn't afford the full length!) Imagine my surprise when I learnt she had married firstly a GI in 1944 and gone to the US....sadly changed my view of my mother the person who brings you up to be honest etc!
    Father died, then mother soon after quite a few of fathers family couldn't wait to tell me this was why we had never lived near them and none of the family attended the wedding.......even now Auntie ( fathers sister) aged 86 refers to my mother as that woman...the same Auntie thinks the Vicar got the entry wrong in the parish records of Gt Grandmother having 5 illegit children no sorry the entry is Bastard!!

    Surely our research will expose the skeleton in the cupboard the facts are there for all to see...you only need to read some of the posts on this forum where a poster believes one story and we as super sleuths chuck it out of the window and come up with the real facts.

    OOPs! Should have read the rest of the posts

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