Skeletons in cupboards.....

[Davie]

I was just wondering if anybody else has come across an upset relative during his or her researches.
Last month I was doing some look-ups in Glasgow, for a person in Georgia USA,
and found out that someone with the same surname as herself fought on the same side as Billy Cumberland at Culloden.
The lassie was really upset, and, though it was no relation, got a tad obnoxious to me and never got back in touch.
While researching my own lot, came across a great great aunt, who had six children to five different partners (all verified)
I had passed this info onto a younger member of my family, who was doing a family tree, and she refused to accept that any of her family would be such a “Slut”, her word, not mine.
I would be interested to know your views on this
Davie

[LesleyB]

Hi Davie
As family researchers I think we all have a responsibility to tread warily at times. Certianly that's what I've learnt the hard way from personal experience and from the many discussions on here, dealing with similar "skeleton" issues.

I think we sometimes tend to forget in our enthusiasm for our research that other folk are related to "our family" too, and what your average genealogist is delighted to find as an interesting and juicy twist in the tale is not always welcome news for other members of the family.....

Best wishes
Lesley

[davran]

My 'skeleton' is a gggrandfather who was an eminent Reverend, who also had an illegitimate family. He was well known on the lecture circuit and his sermons were well-received - I doubt any of his audience knew of his other family. He went on a lecture tour of N America and never returned, suffering a heart attack in Canada at the age of 73.

[sheilajim]

Hi All

So far I have only come across one "secret", but it was more a confirmation than a discovery. So far my family, on the surface at least, seems very boring. I would love to find some juicy scandals of the past.

The reason I feel this way is, I suppose, that what many people in the past, thought was so immoral, seems to me to be nobody's business but their own.

Things like murder and robbery, are of course different, but I would still like to know anyway.

Regards

Sheila

[paddyscar]

...
she refused to accept that any of her family would be such a “Slut”, her word, not mine.
I would be interested to know your views on this

Let's just say to your younger family member those who live in glass houses .... not to mention the pill was still a couple of centuries away!

Can you imagine what our great grannies would think of young women with their limbs on display, talking to their young male friends unchaperoned, at the corner after dark, looking like a hussey with all that paint on their faces

In general, that's rather a sad attitude held in the other instances you mention. If they want to be 'revisionist' genealogists, they should spare themselves the money and simply write a novel about 'their roots'.

I can neither take credit or blame for any who have come before me. I just want to know more about them.

Frances

[fmackay]

My father was always reluctant to speak about his background - mainly because his mother was illegitimite but he eventually told me lots about his family. I wrote to one of his uncles but he refused to tell me anything!
I realise it perhaps wasn't spoken about but it was certainly more common than we think!However I have to respect that not everyone likes discovering the truth about their family. For me the darker the better!

[StewL]

So far the major "scandal" in one of my lines is a gggreat aunt who was described as a drunken spendthrift. No other scandals at present. But then as has been said you have to put it in the context of the era. Back then it was much safer to drink beer etc than the water, and I wonder what any of us would do now if we inherited a small fortune.

As Frances pointed out the pill was a few centuries away, and other means of contraception werent exactly sitting on the shelfs in the chemist like today.

Another point we all have to remember was that there was no pension back then, so if your husband died you quickly got married to some else so that you and your wains could live. Or you married another woman if your wife died to help raise your wains.

I have not come across anyone in my family who refuse to accept the details I find, but then again it is not a wide circle I am spreading the word to. All but one of my aunts and uncles have died, but a cousin in Scotland is someone I send the information too, and she fills in what she can at her end, with the information she has or can find.

I suppose that young woman is being a bit moralistic, and has no idea of the times we are researching, it wasnt that they had no morals, it was just different times.

A bit of a ramble I know, but we as family historians can't make any moralisitc judgements on those that went before us, as I said they were different times.

ps. My "drunken spendthrift" ggg aunt died at 73, not bad for someone who is reputed to have hit the bottle in those days.

[AnneM]

Hi

My sister is not very positive about some of the information I've provided but not particularly because it is scandalous, though in those terms I guess it was. I find her attitude difficult to understand.

A friend whose tree I was doing was terribly upset to discover that she had English ancestry. I think she believed she was a pure bred Scot. (A very rare commodity indeed).

I also researched my children's paternal line because they were interested to know about their surname and though I have told my ex some of the things I have discovered, particularly about a 2x great grandfather who fought in the Crimean War, I am sure he would rather not know that a great grandfather committed suicide in a fairly gruesome way. (I did ask his permission first before starting on this quest as he might have objected.)

The find that amused me most was that my very strict, religious granny had had to get married. Needless to say I did not tell any of my aged aunties that as they might have got upset. There can be too much information and that generation has different sensibilities from ours most of the time.

Anne

[joette]

I was very upset on reading some info on my Gggrandparents-it just didn't tie in with what his children & son-in-law had told me about him.
Then i reread it & realised that I had misinterpreted some info.I just let my Mum read it & left it up to her if she wanted to share it.It was fairly upsetting just not as bad as ||I had originally thought.
Also the confining to the Asylum of an ancestor who is described as insane where her daughter apllies for her & not the Husband despite the fact that they are all living together.

[fmackay]

It's sad when you read that some relatives have died in the poor house/assylum. But I guess in those times that was perhaps the only solution. Nowadays with the knowledge we have about illnesses etc that simply wouldn't happen. Still upsetting to read though
Fiona