Sensitive information for individual born in 1892

Question

Hello:

I've read WikiTree's privacy policy and questions posted to G2G about posting what might be perceived to be sensitive information. I'm still not certain about posting certain details to a collateral ancestor's profile. For reference, I have not yet created the profile.

The information includes a diagnosis of acute mania and dementia while serving in WWI, after which this man was discharged as having a permanent disability but with an excellent character. Thereafter followed desertion of his wife and children, two bigamous marriages, and a series of thefts. He served several sentences for these crimes.

There are descendants of this marriage, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Is it appropriate to post these details, or not?

Thanks in advance,

Alison

Answer 1

I'm sure you'll get different takes on this, and I know there are people who say "Facts are facts, it happened a long time ago, it's important to be accurate," but I would keep the information in the bio to a minimum and use neutral language where possible.  Which information is pertinent to genealogy?  Did he have children from all of his marriages?  Did he die while imprisoned?  Could you say "John was discharged from the Army with a disabling mental illness,"  rather than "diagnosed with acute mania and dementia" or "John had three wives, Jane Jones, Mary Mones, and Sally Sones, but there is no record that he was ever divorced," rather than "John was a bigamist"? Clearly the information is publicly available, since you found it, but that doesn't mean it all has to be repeated here - you can include links to the sources either in the bio or as "See also:"  HIs descendants may or may not know the facts, but if it was my ancestor I would not appreciate seeing all the gory details here.

Answer 2

It is your decision, but there is absolutely no obligation to include every piece of information available for a person. Especially when there are living descendants who may not be aware of some difficult circumstances in the person's life and who could be upset.

I had a similar situation with the inquest report for 1911 suicide of a 2 x great aunt. She committed suicide after rolling over on and accidentally smothering a new born child in bed.  

It seemed that most of her descendants were dead, but then I found 2 grandchildren who lived until the late 1990s meaning that there could be living grt grandchildren, I decided not to make the inquest report public.

Answer 3

Variations on this question are asked over and over again on G2G, and mine is always the dissenting opinion. I don't believe that genealogy is meant to make us comfortable with the past. It's the study of human beings, in human lifetimes. 

Comments

Despite the fact that I marked the answer above as the best because it was treading cautiously you are not the only dissenter. I agree, history is history warts and all.

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I'm with you, Jessica. When I found that one of my wife's ancestors was hung for murder, I not only dragged the skeleton out of the closet, but we got to develop it into an urban legend. It's not like it wasn't plainly out on the internet, as he was the last man to be hung in the state of Florida before they changed the laws to death by electrocution, but the story also included Buford T. Justice (well... that's what I call him when I get to retell the story) coming out of retirement to hunt him and his Uncle down and the story could almost be puffed up a bit to become a Hollywood film.

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Jessica, people ask these questions "over and over" because they feel sufficiently uncomfortable and uncertain about how to proceed. Keep in mind that readers will react differently to what they read depending on their own personal and nuclear family histories, as well as cultural and other ways we process information differentially.