Speaking Ill of the dead?

+10 votes
658 views
I have come across some instances where I do not want to put in facts.

For example.  Looking for why a marriage separation occurred, I found some newspaper articles about several incidences of violence.  One article about a woman, who was so frightened at seeing him (her ex partner) on a train, she jumped off a moving train to be seriously injured.   

Another is of my personal memories/experiences and other people's comments to me which were not very nice to an individual in my tree.

I came upon another where there is a guilty rape verdict.

I would imagine I am not the only one, who can not add these unpleasant facts to a profile.  

Wondering what other's would do?
in The Tree House by NG Hill G2G6 Pilot (127k points)
retagged by Ellen Smith

7 Answers

+10 votes
 
Best answer
There are many possibly nasty occurrences in a person's life that don't affect their family history.

Such as who their parents were, who their spouse or partner was and who their children was/are, it is not at all necessary to explain all the unpleasant details about why some family relationships fell apart.

It is quite acceptable to say, A and B divorced or separated, chose to live apart in X year, due to irreconcilable differences.  

There have been several other G2G conversations about similar topics, such as suicides.

Sometimes societal conditions at the time can have relevance, such as widespread poverty, famine or disease may be a reason to explain what happened.

I have a several times great aunt who committed suicide after her child died because she the mother rolled over in her sleep and the child suffocated.

The family circumstances at the time were untenable, unemployed husband, no income, no food.

It is entirely your choice what details to include in a biography.

You might want to look at

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1071818/is-it-appropriate-to-post-inquest-results-for-a-suicide?show=1071818#q1071818
by M Ross G2G6 Pilot (965k points)
selected by NG Hill

Since suicide has been mentioned, I'd like to repeat something I've mentioned on G2G before, which I think is important. When reporting on or writing about suicide, journalistically but also in WikiTree profiles which may have a wide audience over time as well, it is important to minimise the potential impact on other troubled people. There are useful guidelines at these links:

In particular, it may be dangerous to mention method or location.

NG, thanks for the star.
+6 votes
I would not add events such as those you have described. Almost all families have some underlying unspoken secret. If it was truly a painful and undiscussed event I don't think it should be part of anyone's biography.
by Virginia Fields G2G Astronaut (1.3m points)
You also have to decide how recently it happened.  Would there be living descendants who would be distressed by this very public description of the incident? It can be even more painful if they didn't know (family secrets again). Would you like to find out this way? How horrible!
+16 votes
I'm inclined to include such information. To exclude unpleasant facts is to omit history and put neer-do-wells in a favorable light. Consideration should only be given to the victims. To exclude unpleasantries of the Harpe brothers would be to make them more human. To exclude circumstances that made them who they were, puts others in a more favorable light by ommission.
by K Smith G2G6 Pilot (456k points)

This is my philosophy, as well.  The guilty parties don't deserve to have their crimes swept under the rug - especially if it's public record, anyhow.  I would never attach such things to the people they victimized, however.  I might mention there had been abuse as reason for a divorce, but that's it.

It's almost impossible to not include the name/ names of victims or if you are going to discuss the actions of the perpetrator and or their WT ID.
I would say it's quite easy to not include the names of victims. You are in control of what you put in the bio.

If it's a famous scenario (like Booth killing Lincoln) then you would want the victim's identity for completeness, but there the story is already public anyway.
With a famous case such as Booth killing Lincoln there is no need to protect someone's identity.

However with 'ordinary people' it could be completely different.

If while creating a profile for ABC-1, you find information that this person horrifically abused their family members.

Listed as ABC-2, ABC-3 and ABC-4, plus their spouse DEF-1, if you post the information and state  ABC-1 abused their children and spouse, the information is 'out there'.

Yes, elapsed time does make a difference.
Abuse within the family is indeed a little trickier. You could just say "ABC-1 abused others" and leave it at that. Of course the story is incomplete then, but the hint of what went on is there. The victims could be inside the family or outside, but If DEF-1 divorces or separates, the reader has a good idea why.

Note that they don't shy away from this topic on "Finding your Roots" or "Who do you think you are?"
+16 votes

We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth.―Voltaire

by Robert Judd G2G6 Pilot (142k points)
Leave out murder and mayhem, Bonnie and Clyde would read like Romeo and Juliet.
+12 votes

To me, "speaking ill" is saying something that is unproven - more like gossip.  If it's factual, then the wrong-doer has no right to a "respectable" reputation.  Dying didn't wipe away the harm they caused.  Knowing their actions may explain to others why the people they victimized behaved the way they did afterward.  Just as today some people are scoundrels (to put it nicely), there have always been scoundrels.  Who do we help by protecting the dead ones?

by Jen Wilson G2G1 (1.4k points)
+9 votes
It's always a judgement call, minor crimes I leave out, crimes I include if they are relevant to explain life events, eg resulting in transportation etc.

 If someone's been dead for a 100 years or more their reputation is a bit irrelevant especially if the documents are in the public domain and readily available.
by Gary Burgess G2G6 Pilot (156k points)
Common sense and common decency go a long way.
This is the key part to me. Time provides emotional distance.

If there are living children or even grandchildren that knew the person, I would be hesitant to put that information up publicly. But if you're talking about someone in the 1800's or before, then I would think of it as a fascinating story. You always want to know more than birth-death-marriage-children-location. Having actual stories about the person is what brings color to the history.
+6 votes
I have a profile whose existence was entirely due to the fact that she was raped by her step-father and took him to court. She was fifteen years old.

She has no birth registration, and had no known presence in online genealogies when I created the profile. Her date of birth is sourced from newspaper reporting of the rape trial.

I was looking for newspaper references to her mother at the time I found her.

If it were not for the rape trial, and my subsequent investigations into the birth of her daughter, her descendants would still be of the opinion that they are the the result of the rape. They would also not be aware of the half-family they now have.

She ended up abandoned by her mother and step-father, living in the street, incarcerated in the Destitute Asylum, having an illegitimate daughter to an itinerant plumber, leaving the country, getting married, and growing old surrounded by a new loving family.

I believe it important to document these events - they're in the record anyway.

Obviously the nearer to current generations you get, the more you need to treat them with respect.

I have one family I worked on in which I was told to stop by a descendent "because I'd get it wrong". The event in question (a fratricide) was 120 years ago. I asked them to tell the story in their words - which they had researched for decades - and they refused. Their research will end up in a shoebox in an attic, ultimately to be thrown away, and their family's story will be told by others anyway.
by Chris Willoughby G2G6 Mach 2 (28.0k points)
edited by Chris Willoughby
As an adjunct to these examples, my grandfather burnt our family bible because he wanted to erase all evidence of his relationship to his cousin (who had murdered his wife).

He did not succeed in this endeavour, as we still know of this relationship.

What he did was destroy ALL evidence of our origins, and it has remained a family brick wall despite decades of research. Even DNA analysis has shed no light.

If we weren't all hiding skeletons our research would be that much easier.
I was writing a profile about a family member who abandoned his children after his wife died and his children were all raised by other families. He married again and abandoned his wife and children from his second family. The Census records show that he lived alone after he left his second family.

In the profile, I never use the word "abandoned" but when I add the facts about his marriages, his children, who raised his children, and his living alone, it is very clear that he was not a nice fellow.

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