Description
Jack Crahan faced a dilemma while researching vital record documents some 20 plus years ago because he was uncomfortable with some of the personal information that he uncovered. Should he ignore what he found, should he edit it and change the facts of what really happened to minimize their impact, or should he share the information he had uncovered? If the latter, what guidelines should he use? As a genealogist or a family historian, we have already faced this same dilemma, or we will face it in the future. This presentation will offer some guidance to address this issue as we continue our research into our own families. Jack does this through a combination of thoughts abstracted from articles on the subject, as well as real world examples. He speaks to the “elephant in the room” which all genealogists face when they begin to write about their family. What is a family secret and why do families have secrets? What are some of the impacts of these secrets and what brings them to light? How do you research a family secret? The better question is – should you? Jack then provides some tips to help you make this decision with guidance on how to best provide this information to future generations. To help make this presentation more meaningful, Jack asked four fellow genealogists to write a story about a “secret” they found in their own family history. He purposely provided limited guidance in their story development because he wanted to present a real-world critique in order to make this presentation more telling to the listeners. These stories (including his own) are real and they have not been edited by the presenter.
