Sharing the "bad" stories in your family tree.

Everyone who researches their family ancestry is doing it for a different reason. Often the pursuit begins with wanting to know about a grandparent or an immigrant ancestor. But as we keep going down the rabbit hole, more clues pop up to pique our interest.

What many of us find, however, is that there are a lot of unpleasant stories. So, what do you do about sharing them?

First, I would suggest giving thought to what you are planning to do with your ancestral findings. Are you considering publishing them? Do you keep a tree on a public website? Is this something strictly for you and your family? Assuming that the person or persons who are the subjects of the story are deceased, what else would you want to say about them? Is this account so painful that you can't find any reason to reveal it? Or would the pain of the story explain the pain of someone else's story?

Details that are a matter of public record are simply that and there is very little that can be done to protect the contents. It can be really difficult to discern, sometimes, what we are uncomfortable sharing vs. what someone else is. For instance, would the particular vile or controversial story make the subject feel shame if it were to be exposed? Or does it make you feel shame? If you are planning to leave the story for future generations, we can't really (even if we wanted to) get inside the hearts and minds of our scions and feel what they feel. Revealing a sordid tale can often lead to validated feelings of one's own experience and therefore, not all uncomfortable stories are going to have a negative impact.

If you keep a tree on a public website and the story in question is not a matter of public record, then it's probably a good idea to find another place to store it. Even if your tree is private, your story is still cataloged somewhere for anyone else to see on the back end and there is no way to know who is there. So be mindful of that.

Second, make a list of the pros and cons associated with exposing the story and be honest. If you find that most of the reasons pertain to your feelings then consider finding balance with that. Are you looking to rewrite your family history or tell the story as it is, with court-of-law facts not opinions? If there are people associated with the story still living, consider asking them how they feel about it. Understandably, this isn't always possible to do given the myriad of unique circumstances surrounding the story.

If the story is not a matter of public record, then finding compassion for the feelings of the living is a wise thing to do. There are no right or wrong answers. It's simply important to consider the consequences, particularly in relation to what you don't know.

This is not an easy thing to do. But I am a big believer in sharing the shame because we all have it. Maybe if we found the space to accept what we do not approve of, we would collectively experience less of it.

To keep history going, it's important we acknowledge the good and the bad rather than to hide it. How else will we learn to do better going forward if we can't recall the mistakes of the past?