Truth Be Damned (?)

I suffered a heart wrenching dilemma recently, concerning my very extensive and dearly beloved Ancestry.com family tree. The moment has since passed, and I am no longer suffering this dilemma, as I have made a final decision. However, I am curious to know what others might have done in my situation.

Anyone who's used Ancestry.com knows how easy it is to find long lost relatives ... to reconnect with distant cousins ... and to be able to exchange valuable information through those channels. It's been through several "Relative Strangers" that I have obtained priceless treasures in the form of old photographs and documents.

It typically starts with an inter-system message: "Hi. I noticed that you have [documents/photos/info] on your tree that could only be had if you are a member of this family. Please tell me where you fit in, and perhaps we can help each other." ... or something along those lines. It's happened many times in the construction of client's trees, as well as my own. It happened again fairly recently, only this time one very distant relative asked something of me that (first) broke my heart ... and (second) ticked me off.

It's all about a particular man in my tree. Due to unfortunate circumstances, (namely, the stock market crash of 1929), this man took his own life ... like so many others had done, after losing their entire net worth, their business, their livelihood, their jobs, their savings, their credit, etc. My grandmother wrote about her memory of this incident in her genealogical memoirs. So of course I added this tidbit to my online tree.

My grandmother's memoirs are full of tidbits that I add to my tree, because the record keeping should be so much more than just names and dates ... it should tell the story of their lives. It should provide you some way to be able to relate to a relative that is long gone by a couple of decades, or even five centuries.

My long lost cousin disagrees. She feels that it is insensitive to his living relatives, who may still remember him in life. She goes on to state that she is especially concerned with one particular relative, and that if they should ever see my tree, they would be upset to see our ancestor's manner of death.

screenshot of actual message,
with speaker's name blurred to protect her privacy

I was immediately offended, and angry, but I reminded myself that it never hurts to ask, right? And how was she to know that I am an advocate for absolute truth, and that I would not allow anyone to censor my ambition to share accurate information about our ancestral history? It is history, after all. And history cannot be rewritten because someone doesn't like it (although it often is, I won't be a knowing party to it).

What if we had an ancestor who died in a German concentration camp? That would be quite disturbing to discover, and yet also fascinating and wonderful. Suddenly, I would have more compassion for that long gone loved one, and may even be compelled to do further research on the region, or the camp itself. I would feel a sense of connection to the historical era, and be proud of my ancestor. I would never think to ask someone to keep that tidbit a secret, because it's unsettling.  Life is unsettling.

I had a client with an ancestor who perished by scurvy and dysentery in the most horrendous prison in the Civil War ... Andersonville. That was disturbing. My grandmother's brother was captured by the Japanese and forced along the Death March of Bataan, before falling at Camp O'Donnell in the Philippines. That was also quite disturbing. But these things are also parts of our family history that are real and true, and should be respected.

I have decided that I will not change the information in my family tree. Would you?