52 Weeks of Genealogy: Secrets (What to Reveal and When?)

Spoiler: If you're looking for deep, dark secrets from my family's past, you won't find them here. Building trust with distant or newly-found relatives is hard enough without blabbing any "secrets" all over the Internet. But I do want to talk about how we, as genealogists, handle family secrets that might be painful or embarrassing to others.

From my vantage point here in the 21st century, it's no big deal that a child of the Depression was born 6 months after his parents' wedding (although both parents took the "secret" to their graves, carefully avoiding any discussion of their exact anniversary date). And it's hard to know whether a long-dead ancestor staved off bankruptcy by arranging a theft to collect insurance money. The situation can be interpreted in different ways by different people, and no one with direct knowledge is still alive to say.

What about the ancestor who died in an insane asylum? Early in the 20th century, chronically ill people were sometimes cared for in asylums because long-term care facilities simply didn't exist. This ancestor was in the asylum for at least 5 years, according to Census and death records, and may have had a heart condition or some other illness rather than a mental problem. Another ancestor died in a poor house, but I don't know any other details of how he came to be there and for how long, or why he wasn't taken in by a sibling who lived less than 200 miles away.

I want to respect the privacy and dignity of family members and yet, I want to tell the truth about my family's history. It's impossible to understand or explain what ancestors did if I don't know their circumstances. We genealogists are always speculating about the "why" of our family's movements and decisions. Knowing the real story can reveal a lot about the reasons behind an ancestor's actions and help us "walk a mile" in his or her shoes.

So here's my plan: I'm telling the true stories, as I know them, to selected family members who can be discreet, and leaving notes in the files. The genealogist of the next generation or the generation after can decide what to reveal and when. Use this knowledge wisely!