In my
last blog I dealt in passing with the topic of 'what should we
share'. This blog is a more in-depth look at what I think we should
consider and is a reflection of my approach when dealing with some
very delicate issues in my books, publications and even in the data I
store on my computer:
Issues With Sensitive Data
When
writing my second book The Families Catudal I had to decide
how to handle a very sensitive issue and that was the issue of
adoption. I had six individuals who were alive and who I knew had
been adopted. One of the five was not legally adopted but was raised
by an Aunt and Uncle. It was always a known secret. One was adopted
as a young child by his grandparents and raised without being told of
his adoption until uncovering the truth himself at the age of 30. Two
of the adoptees were Native babies adopted by a couple who could not
have children themselves. I am not sure if they ever knew of their
Native background. Another of the six was born out of wedlock while
her mother was still married to someone else. Once the first spouse
died the mother married the child’s birth father. The child was
then adopted by the birth father. Only one of the six was adopted
without secrecy and lies. Why is any of these explanations important?
To show you how complicated the issue of adoption is and why it is
all but impossible to document correctly without hurting a lot of
people.
You
might be asking yourself “What’s the big deal?” Well there are
some major issues: Do you document an adoption when it was a open
secret? If the adoptee does not want his or her status known do you
document it anyway because you have the data? What if the adoptee’s
birth parent(s) want credit for the birth of the child who they gave
up for adoption but the child does not want it exposed? What about
the illegitimate child’s right not to have that particular piece of
information out there for all to know? What about the generations to
come who look for their own family history and, because no one
documented an adoption, end up never knowing their real heritage?
How I
have handled this information was to ask each person who had been
adopted, when is was possible to do so, how they wanted the
information presented. That is how I handled the issue in my first
book too and still ended up getting a great deal of heat from one
birth parent who felt that they had the right to have all of their
children documented whether or not they were then adopted out or not.
I haven’t changed my mind on this issue and think that the
generations that come after will have to work it out for themselves.
It is my opinion that you honour the wishes of the one who was
adopted. It is far more important to respect those who are affected
by disclosure now than to document something that someone in the
future may or may not find useful.
Moral Issues
Adoption
is not the only sensitive issue where people have differing opinions
on how the information should be documented and discussed.
I
know of several cases where a child was sexually abused by their
father or uncle. In some of these cases the people directly involved
have all passed away, yet I have been contacted by extended family
members asking me not to write about these circumstances in my book.
The same is true for spousal abuses, suicides and illnesses –
specifically anything to do with mental illness. Someone made the
comment to me that to publish this type of information would make the
immediate family look bad. Therefore, I have made it a point not to
discuss or divulge certain types of information about people living
or thought to be living in my publications. When the person or
persons who are or were affected are no longer alive I have asked
their families for permission to include sensitive information about
their relatives. If I could not ask because I had no contact to the
immediate family I simply did not add the information. The types of
information that I have been very careful with are, in part, stories
of child abuse, sexual abuse, spousal abuse, incest, suicide,
adoption, sexual orientation, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse
or addiction and criminal activity.
Two
issues about documenting this type of information are: it may hurt
those still living and secondly, maybe the common knowledge that
‘Uncle so and so’ liked little girls was not true. Maybe he was
just a bit strange and somehow a rumour was started to scare children
away from him. Who knows?
I
have also not even documented any of these issues in my database. The
problem with documenting sensitive or speculative data is that
eventually when one dies someone else will then be in possession of
‘the truth’. Then what? Will they too feel the moral
responsibility to honour and respect confidential information. It is
for this reason that when I do know something for certain about
someone but have been asked specifically not to divulge the
information then I have opted not to document that information
anywhere at all.
In
saying this, I have documented some illnesses, the ones that have no
impact on those living or where I have been specifically asked to
document such information, and one case of incest. I documented the
one incest case because it was the very first such conviction of its
type in New France and happened to be a very distant relative.
What
about information that you know, absolutely know, is true. Should you
pass it on in a publication/book/blog? I had two very large dilemmas
about two different Catudals: One was an arsonist and another was a pedophile. Both were tried in court. The pedophile was convicted.
It is a long story about the arsonist who, if I were to explain what
happened, would help to identify him. Suffice to say that he did set
a number of fires that caused a lot of damage but thankfully took no
lives. Both of these men are alive. In the arsonist's case, I'm not
sure if his wife even knows about his past. So, the question was, do
I publish that information in the book I was writing or not. I chose
not to. It was just too great a risk of damaging innocent lives; by
that I mean the extended family of these perpetrators.
These
really weren't the only dilemmas I had but they certainly were the
most extreme. I guess each of us in the position of passing on
sensitive information, and that means most of us, need to check our
moral compasses and make sure they're working before taking that step
of revealing information simply because they are in possession of
that information.
Privacy and Identity
I
never publish identifying information, birth date and birth location,
for anyone alive or thought to be alive for the very unlikely event
that that data could be used to steal someone’s identity. This is a
very controversial issue and there are strong arguments on both sides
of the table.
One
side says that if you look in the Internet at social networks, such
as Facebook and Google+, you will see that the majority of people
give out that information freely and they are not necessarily victims
of identity theft. What can having information on someone’s birth
date, birth place and mother’s maiden name actually get you? some
people ask.
On
the other side, I remember having my wallet stolen. I went to those
that be and told them what had happened. I did not have any
documentation to support my claim because all of that had been
stolen. They asked me my mother’s maiden name, my birth date and
where I was born. After answering those three questions correctly
they re-issued my birth certificate to me. I used it to get my
driver’s licence. I used my birth certificate and driver’s
licence to get my health card and so on.
Now-a-days,
at least in Canada (where I was brought-up and in Germany where I now
live), you have to provide a guarantor in order to prove your
identity. However, not all guarantors are checked for validity. That
is why I always choose to side on the side of extreme caution and
don't document identifying information on those living or thought to
be living.
Family Secrets About Illnesses
My
experience after distributing my first book, The
Extended Catudal Family History, was that most were
pleased that I did not divulge certain medical ‘secrets’ about
their particular families yet displeased that I did not add
information about other families.
A
case in point was that in my last book I had added information on
someone who I myself knew well and as such knew him to have been
mentally handicapped. He had since died so I made mention of that
fact. I was asked by his family members to remove that information
from my next book because it made the family ‘look bad’. Yet
someone from another family wrote to tell me that it was so
interesting to know about a disability from that particular family as
they too knew someone from a related family who was also mentally
handicapped and thought that maybe more of this type of information
should appear in the next book. The thinking was that we may be able
to spot health trends specific to the Catudal families lines.
Keeping
that in mind, I recently posted a question to a Catudal group in the
social network Facebook asking if any members of their particular
line of Catudals had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. I know that
my particular line of Catudals has been hard hit with this
degenerative disease. I said that they could answer me through e-mail
if they preferred. Several answered using Facebook but most answered
through e-mail asking me not to divulge the information being passed
on to me as it would upset family members. Of course I wouldn’t
knowingly upset anyone but it saddens me to know that we could be
helping one another to be alert to potential health risks but we
cannot because most would rather that information be with-held as
they feel that it would put a bad light on their particular families.
Things Change
After
I published my first book and started working on my second book I had
gotten to the point of adding family pictures or updating family
pictures to add to the new book: A number of couples had since
separated or divorced; a couple of families had become estranged.
When I contacted those families where things had changed or become
strained I was met with what one could best describe as hostel
reactions to the idea of having pictures of either themselves, former
spouses, their children, their parents and any other combination
added to the book. I did as they asked but it saddens me because in
every case the person or persons being removed or not added were long
time members of the Catudal family or one of its extended family
members. In a couple cases I was even asked to remove the divorced
spouse’s name entirely; that I did not do as that is a part of
public record but I did remove all pictures when requested to do so.
That was very sad.
In Conclusion
Years
ago I was asked by someone if I could tell her some information about
her grandmother, such as, what she was like, what did she like to do,
did she suffer from any ailments, what was her relationship to her
siblings and so on. I was stymied. The person asking was a very
distant cousin, something like a cousin 7 times removed or some wild
number like that. She was asking me?
We would all like to know what our distant relatives were like. Did
great great grandpa run moonshine during prohibition days? Do we have
heroes or deserters in our family history? Do we have people in our
family history who did extraordinary things? Does our particular
family history line have a history of depression that we don't know
about? There are a million questions which all of us would love to
have the answers to but very few of us would like that sort of
information that affects us specifically to be known about or shared
with others. That is the nature of the beast. Do we share and if so
what do we share is certainly not clear-cut by any means. I have only
give out my position on that issue. I'd love for you to leave me a
comment sharing your views.
