Family History Tips--Part 15

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
by Brenna Corbit, Technical Services Librarian

Most family historians usually hope to find praiseworthy and interesting ancestors. Who wouldn’t want to find an ancestor that rescued a victim from broken ice, or to be descended from someone famous, such as the first woman elected senator? Even bad guys such as bootleggers and stories of take-the-money-and-run can add some color to a family tree. Newspaper archives are filled with our ancestors’ stories. But what do you do about really ugly ancestors?





The past can be dark. I researched a family tree in Berks County and discovered that the person’s six times great grandfather’s brother brutally murdered their parents. Many newspapers described the murders in grisly detail. As shocking as it was, two hundred years softened the blow. I have discovered suicides, rapes, and sexual abuse, too. Always the gap of time distanced the person from the tragedy. But what of those that happened not too long ago?



The past becomes a black hole to the family historian when confronting those living in the shadows of tragic events. In one case, “something terrible had happened,” but it was never discussed. And another brick wall response was “I was always told ‘you don’t want to know about that.’” Sometimes answers can be found. Newspapers revealed one died in prison and had to be identified by the son. The other was found dead in an abandoned shack of acute alcoholism.



For various reasons, some researchers choose to ignore an entire branch of their trees. You can’t choose your past. I am sure all families have the good, the bad, and the ugly. If we bury the past, we may be condemned to repeat it, or we may never find a truly interesting past. 

One individual didn’t care to know of her father, a very dysfunctional individual who also lived in a shadowed past of a paternal suicide, but much research showed that she was a descendant of the first governor of South Carolina who in turn was a decedent of French counts. Sometimes the individual is a bad seed, or there may be generations of dysfunction.

Sometimes a family history is only discovered by talking to those living in the shadows of ugly pasts. Each situation must be handled differently. In the past, I have had abrupt questions result in just as quick phone clicks. 

Before asking questions, take your time. Ease into the conversation. Years ago, I contacted my great uncle to discuss my great-grandfather. He invited me over for dinner and he spent the whole evening discussing his “scoundrel” of a father. In the end he said it was healing to talk about him. I hope that if you confront a shadowed past, it can be just as accepting and healing.