I’ve been told to not speak ill of the dead more than once.
Non-genealogists are sometimes told this when a relative or a family has a challenging personality, has caused family conflict, or been involved in questionable activities. Sometimes it’s a fine line of how much to share and preserve and what to edit out—particularly when the events are not recorded or preserved in other ways such as newspapers, court records, .or other publicly available records.
I’m pretty liberal in sharing what was in a newspaper or public court record—things were known at the time anyway. Occasionally there may be something on a publicly availably death certificate that was not publicly available at the time the document was recorded.
But those things such as family squabbles and the like…how much of those to share and how much to edit out? If you witnessed a family agrument that resulted in a long-term estrangement is it necessary to record all the words that were said and preserve the blow-by-blow details of the drama, or is it sufficient to record the essence of what happened?
I’m inclined to go with a somewhat broader overview and summary of the event and not record the minute details.
It may be sufficient to say that “Grandpa and his brother had a physical altercation after his brother accused him of selling grain from their father’s estate and keeping all the proceeds for himself. Things got so bad that Grandma called the sheriff when the brothers were fighting. Grandpa and his brother never spoke again.”
I’m sure most genealogists have some details of their life that they’d like to take to the grave with them. Our ancestors may have a few of those details of their own as well.
Or maybe after one is dead they won’t care.
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