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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2004-09 > 1094044118


From: "Lysi" <>
Subject: Re: Essex family problems - to disclose or not?
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 09:08:38 -0400
References: <016601c48ffc$3eec4a60$a8790650@packard>


Colleen and all interested,

May I suggest a compromise between the two? You sound sensitive and
intelligent enough to take each case as it comes, and this may be the best
method. Some people are never going to want to know the truth. They may
consider it damaging, unnecessary, etc. Others, like myself, want to know
everything, whether pleasant, exciting, torrid, gruesome, disappointing.
I've had two instances in my own tree where illegitimacy was suppressed and
through sleuthing have figured out one and not the other. Both greatly
effect and change the course of my tree. In the first case all concerned are
dead and would not be much of an issue with those descendants still living.
With the other, I've got a man in his nineties still alive who won't divulge
the identity of his real father and it's very frustrating! Some would say
it's none of my business. Others would assert that such instances become the
business of all that genetically come of this 'accident'. Everyone has their
reasons for each assertion, but with a discriminating eye you can usually
figure out which category folks belong to, and act accordingly.

Elysia
----- Original Message -----
From: "colleen morrison" <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 4:18 AM
Subject: Essex family problems - to disclose or not?


> From time to time I help with a query and discover something in the past
regarding an enquirer's direct line of ancestors that might upset the
enquirer if I tell them. I don't mean murderers, murder victims, out of
wedlock births or that sort of thing, many of us have those and don't bat an
eyelid about this or even welcome the colour it gives our research.
>
> The sort of problem I'm thinking of is that of a long line of Essex people
who were very tiny, not much more than 3' tall, I would think, if that -
referred to as dwarfs at the time, though that's not a very nice way to
describe someone and its probably a discriminatory term in Britain today.
Some of this line married very tiny people too, and the trait appears to
have been a persistent one.
>
> Anyway, I usually decide that itsnot my business to point this out and say
nothing. But am I right to do so? If my ancestors had ancestors with genetic
traits such as this I would want to know, so perhaps I have no right to keep
such information to myself. Saying nothing can also make it difficult when
I'm asked for copies of photographs which show the above line by enquirers
who are descended from it.
>
> A friend of mine has discovered a lot of extreme extra-marital goings on,
confused paternity and missing marriages among the one set of recent
ancestors. His attitude is that even very elderly and frail members of his
family should be told the truth. I personally would not tell them about
this. What do others do in such circumstances?
>
> I should add that none of the above applies to anyone I'm helping at
present or I wouldn't post this.
>
> Colleen
>
>


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