Note: If you decide to

[Mrs Mungo]

I'd just like to add that this has been an issue in many adoptive families that I know, where the genealogical rules sticklers insist on being right at the expense of the feelings of their relatives. I feel that is self-centered and egotistical.

 

Tara

 

And what about the need to make everyone the SAME until none of us have any heritage? I find it downright offensive.

 

OF COURSE people interested in genealogy are pedantic! I had a relative whose wife died. He remarried and his (teenaged) kids disappeared. It took me days of going through census records to find them at his brother's farm. Did the stepmom insist on them getting out? Did they resent her interference? Were her kids brats? Did the uncle just need the extra help on the farm because his kids were young? I don't know. I only know that the dad remarried and the kids went to live with the uncle. But, nobody but a pedantic person would bother!!!

Edited October 15, 2012 by Mrs Mungo

[Mrs Mungo]

It's in my family tree though I've never included it on reports that I give out.

 

Right. If the aunt is new to genealogy research, maybe she doesn't know that this is the norm.

 

This in no way diminishes the relationship he has with his father. It's just the truth. It shows in part the myriad ways in which families are made. When we whitewash family trees, we lose that. More so than as a geneaologist, as a historian, it's disturbing to see people so ready to twist events or cover them up in the name of perpetual privacy.

 

Exactly. And it shows that it happens over and over and over throughout history. It's nothing new or exceptional. That's exactly why I disagree with the idea of whitewashing it.

[Kathryn]

I guess when you've built your family via adoption, the relative importance of different things changes.

 

I used to be very interested in my personal biological roots, but as another poster said, that disappeared when I adopted children who do not and never will share those biological roots. Especially since they are unlikely to have any practical connection to their own biological roots. It would be kind of like taunting to say "see how awesome my heritage is, too bad you don't have any."

 

It's not about hiding the facts about my kids' lives. It's about not rubbing it in. Lord knows my kids' life history is more thoroughly documented than any bio child's will ever be. And it's interesting and positive. But it doesn't mean they ought to be denied a normal branch on a family tree that includes me. I can't even imagine someone deciding that their legal name doesn't qualify because they weren't born with it.

 

But, adoption is part of an individual's history, and part of shared human history. If we just pretended that it didn't happen, our conception of the past would be completely different. The act of adoption, what leads up to it, and its effects shape not only the individual but society. Acknowledging it helps individuals deal with it and helps historians (not to mention sociologists and other diaciplines) track movement patterns of people, interpersonal relationships, etc. imagine what our history books would look like if there was never any acknowledgment of adoption or illegitimacy. Much of human behavior has to do with the consequences of sex and how we deal with them. Do we hide illegitimate children? Do we leave handicapped children in the wilderness? Do we find loving parents for those whose birth parents weren't able to care for them? Does that cross racial/ethnic/religious lines? Or do we rip children from the arms of loving minorities to have them raised and indoctrinated in the majority culture? Did slave masters take advantage of slave women? Have there always been men willing to step in and care for offspring that they knew wasn't their own? What did those relationships look like? What are the consequences of orphanage life? How do adoptions change family dynamics? There are so very many questions that can be asked. We can't answer any of them if we fail to acknowledge the basic fundamental fact that families are made, physically and socially, in so many different ways.

[Kathryn]

Really? Legal dad does not equal bio dad. I understand not wanting to mislead, but every adult should understand that a "father" might be legally but not biologically the father, e.g., in the case where the wife had a one-night stand or was pregnant with someone else's child at the time of marriage.

 

If you want to make notes for your own private interest, that's fine. But I would not share with others in cases like what you've described.

 

I understand using the legal name at birth (or ASAP thereafter) if that is your consistent rule, but switching out the legal last name because you happen to know a secret is inconsistent with that rule.

 

In the case in my family Mom got pregnant and had Baby Herlastname. She never told the bio dad. Three months later, she got pregnant again by someone else. She told him that she was giving the baby up for adoption because she couldn't take care of two kids. He said he wouldn't sign papers because he wanted his child. She moved so he couldn't find her. She married a man she'd met three months earlier two days before the baby was born. He signed adoption papers for baby number two because in my state he was now the legal parent until proven otherwise. They then had his name put on the birth certificate as father for Baby Herlastname and had his last name changed to current family last name.

 

Consistent with the form I use for all members of my tree, Baby Herlastname is recorded so in the main entry. There is another name entry with his new legal last name. When anyone requests the tree, I manually change it to the current name before I send the report (since I have the preferred name as the original). I have no intention of telling living people's personal secrets, but I will keep the correct information for posterity's sake.

Edited October 15, 2012 by kebg11

[SKL]

Just out of curiosity, how would you show a situation like mine, where I have never been married, I adopted kids born to unmarried birth moms (with whom we have never had contact), and I have no information about their birth fathers?

 

BTW, I'm not suggesting that the fact of the legal process of adoption be hidden. But the fact of adoption does not make them any less my children, or any less my parents' grandchildren, than the bio kids in the family. And their legal names are their names.

[Mrs Mungo]

Just out of curiosity, how would you show a situation like mine, where I have never been married, I adopted kids born to unmarried birth moms (with whom we have never had contact), and I have no information about their birth fathers?

 

BTW, I'm not suggesting that the fact of the legal process of adoption be hidden. But the fact of adoption does not make them any less my children, or any less my parents' grandchildren, than the bio kids in the family. And their legal names are their names.

 

The software that I use? I would enter the names on their birth certificates and their current legal names. I would have you as their mom with a note about known/unknown information on their birth parents.

[SKL]

The software that I use? I would enter the names on their birth certificates and their current legal names. I would have you as their mom with a note about known/unknown information on their birth parents.

 

They have three birth certificates. Which one?

[Mrs Mungo]

They have three birth certificates. Which one?

 

Any/all names listed on any/all birth certificates.

[Haiku]

Marking them as adopted on a genealogical chart is not deliberately illustrating a difference between them and the rest of the family. Therefore, I do not understand what point you are trying to make.

 

I was talking about the race/white pedigree thing that I mentioned earlier, which is why I referred to "the race thing." I'm not talking about marking someone as adopted, although I have seen that used in a hurtful way, as well, such as when someone creates a beautiful decorative family tree that is for display purposes only (not as a factual genealogical record) and either prominently marks the adopted person as such or leaves them off entirely. Both things have happened in families I know. But I was referring to the race thing, since you said "the facts" are not hurtful. If they are used in an intentionally hurtful way, yes, they can be.

 

I cannot imagine anything like that happening in my family. So, it is hard to relate to my circumstances.

 

Then count yourself blessed, and understand that your experience doesn't mean other people's are without merit.

 

Again, my opinion is the best thing to do is keep information you are tracking about living relatives private.

 

Which is explicitly NOT what the aunt is doing in this case.

 

I guess what's bothering me about your responses in this thread is that they are entirely pragmatic and factual and don't seem to be recognizing that emotions may be involved. In my opinion, people over things, always. Even if that "thing" is a family tree/genealogical record.

 

Tara

[Candid]

Which, is useless information without looking for a specific problem. Tracking people who are alive NOW (which was the question in the OP) and possibly have a similar issue is what I am talking about. I come from a large family. Small families would probably find it all less helpful.

 

And you'd have a pulmonary doctor to do exactly that, right?

[Meriwether]

And what about the need to make everyone the SAME until none of us have any heritage? I find it downright offensive.

 

OF COURSE people interested in genealogy are pedantic! I had a relative whose wife died. He remarried and his (teenaged) kids disappeared. It took me days of going through census records to find them at his brother's farm. Did the stepmom insist on them getting out? Did they resent her interference? Were her kids brats? Did the uncle just need the extra help on the farm because his kids were young? I don't know. I only know that the dad remarried and the kids went to live with the uncle. But, nobody but a pedantic person would bother!!!

 

 

The bolded happened to my great-grandmother when her father remarried. He raised the new wife's kids while my G-Gm was shuffled from relative to relative. She had a hard life and ended up with some kind of mental illness. She lived with my grandparents near the end of her life and she would sit on the big trunk she used in her childhood looking out the window - watching for her dad to come get her. Mom and Dad have that trunk now. I'd love to have that trunk someday (I think it is slated for my brother, though). Without the story, it'd be just a piece of furniture. I think family history is important - the good, the bad, the ugly. Others in my family have already compiled geneologies. I hope they are accurate.

[SKL]

Any/all names listed on any/all birth certificates.

 

Hmm. I guess to each his own. Personally I would put it as their current legal name, with notes regarding what their previous legal names were. Doesn't putting their first legal full-name, including their birth mom's last name, give the initial impression that I made a baby with someone of that last name?

[Kathryn]

Just out of curiosity, how would you show a situation like mine, where I have never been married, I adopted kids born to unmarried birth moms (with whom we have never had contact), and I have no information about their birth fathers?

 

BTW, I'm not suggesting that the fact of the legal process of adoption be hidden. But the fact of adoption does not make them any less my children, or any less my parents' grandchildren, than the bio kids in the family. And their legal names are their names.

 

Again, I've not done genealogy in over a decade so I have no idea what current software capabilities are. Let's say you are my aunt/niece/someone not in my direct line. What I would have done back then:

 

1. If I knew their names at birth.

Under you family page, which had just you listed as a parent, in the children section, I'd list them by name given at birth. Alternate name field would be called current legal name and I'd list it. I'd note that they were adopted and the date if I knew it. In the Notes field, I would list any information I had been given about their birth family. I would not make separate parent pages for someone not in my direct line.

 

2. If I did not know their names at birth.

Under you family page, which had just you listed as a parent, in the children section, I'd list them by current legal name. I'd note that they were adopted and the date if I knew it. In the Notes field, I would list any information I had been given about their birth family. Again, I would not make separate parent pages for someone not in my direct line.

 

If your child was my mother, in addition to the above, I'd make a separate family page for what I knew of her birth family, she being attached as a child of both you and the biological mom. I would try to trace what I could of the biological family as well.

[Haiku]

OF COURSE people interested in genealogy are pedantic! I had a relative whose wife died. He remarried and his (teenaged) kids disappeared. It took me days of going through census records to find them at his brother's farm. Did the stepmom insist on them getting out? Did they resent her interference? Were her kids brats? Did the uncle just need the extra help on the farm because his kids were young? I don't know. I only know that the dad remarried and the kids went to live with the uncle. But, nobody but a pedantic person would bother!!!

 

Is this situation going on right now? Are you rooting out a current family wound and sharing it with all the relatives in a genealogical document? If so, then I feel you are being unkind and insensitive. If all these people are dead, and no one living has concerns about it, then I see no problem. If it was your grandmother's family and it hurts your mom to be reminded of it even though the grandmother's family is all dead, and you insist on airing it for the sake of factual correctness, again, you are being unkind and insensitive.

 

According to your own statement that information on living relatives should be kept private, your stance on what the aunt is doing here seems inconsistent.

 

Tara

[Kathryn]

Is this situation going on right now? Are you rooting out a current family wound and sharing it with all the relatives in a genealogical document? If so, then I feel you are being unkind and insensitive. If all these people are dead, and no one living has concerns about it, then I see no problem. If it was your grandmother's family and it hurts your mom to be reminded of it even though the grandmother's family is all dead, and you insist on airing it for the sake of factual correctness, again, you are being unkind and insensitive.

 

According to your own statement that information on living relatives should be kept private, your stance on what the aunt is doing here seems inconsistent.

 

Tara

 

We have no idea how OP is related to this story. All we know is that aunt contacted the mother herself and the mother's mom (presumably her own sister?). We don't know who told OP what is going on. Accusing the aunt of gossiping or giving out information she's been requested not to is unfair. We have no knowledge that the aunt has told anyone. Perhaps OP heard the story from one of the other women involved.

[Mrs Mungo]

If they are used in an intentionally hurtful way, yes, they can be.

 

There is little evidence in the OP to indicate that the aunt is being *intentionally* hurtful, even if she is being rash and unwise in her techniques.

 

Then count yourself blessed, and understand that your experience doesn't mean other people's are without merit.

 

I never said that other people's experiences are without merit. However, ALWAYS assigning malicious intent is just silly.

 

Which is explicitly NOT what the aunt is doing in this case.

 

Agreed. But, that doesn't automatically make her malicious in my book. Many people are unwise in their behavior without being malicious.

 

I guess what's bothering me about your responses in this thread is that they are entirely pragmatic and factual and don't seem to be recognizing that emotions may be involved. In my opinion, people over things, always. Even if that "thing" is a family tree/genealogical record.

 

Again, I agree that information on living relatives should be kept private. That would solve the whole problem without being malicious.

 

And you'd have a pulmonary doctor to do exactly that, right?

 

Or a geneticist. Or whatever doctor you can find to take your case at some point.

 

Hmm. I guess to each his own. Personally I would put it as their current legal name, with notes regarding what their previous legal names were. Doesn't putting their first legal full-name, including their birth mom's last name, give the initial impression that I made a baby with someone of that last name?

 

That isn't what I said.

 

The software that I use? I would enter the names on their birth certificates and their current legal names. I would have you as their mom with a note about known/unknown information on their birth parents.

 

You have extensive note-taking abilities in most software specifically *because* many family histories (including my own) are complicated.

 

Is this situation going on right now? Are you rooting out a current family wound and sharing it with all the relatives in a genealogical document? If so, then I feel you are being unkind and insensitive. If all these people are dead, and no one living has concerns about it, then I see no problem. If it was your grandmother's family and it hurts your mom to be reminded of it even though the grandmother's family is all dead, and you insist on airing it for the sake of factual correctness, again, you are being unkind and insensitive.

 

According to your own statement that information on living relatives should be kept private, your stance on what the aunt is doing here seems inconsistent

 

These are people who have been dead for a couple of hundred years. The kids were *teenagers* how would it have been secret? You aren't even making sense.

[OnTheBrink]

This.

 

And it's not relavent. If you want to know if you have a lung disorder - go to the dr. Or have a genetic study done on yourself.

 

And geneology doesn't track accurate medical records. Except possibly cause of death on a death certificate.

 

I think people have even less rights to medical records than geneology. So fron my perspective that's sure not helping your cause.

 

In fact, I'm seriously considering filing a complaint where my sister works. She works in medical billing. And makes an effort to pull up info on family. To say I'm furious is an understatement. But since she would likely be fired for it, I'm trying to temper my reaction. Unsuccessfully so far.

 

 

Your sister is in violation of privacy laws and should be reported. She has absolutely no business looking up anyone's information outside of billing purposes, and even then, she should avoid looking into the files of people she knows personally. She most definitely needs to be reported. In my hospital, this is grounds for immediate termination.

[Haiku]

However, ALWAYS assigning malicious intent is just silly.

 

I'm not assigning malicious intent to her initial actions, but I am to her stubborn refusal to take the mother's feelings about her son's name into account. People can be unintentionally rude or hurtful; what they do AFTER they have been informed that an issue is sensitive says a lot.

 

These are people who have been dead for a couple of hundred years. The kids were *teenagers* how would it have been secret? You aren't even making sense.

 

You did not indicate that these people had been dead for hundreds of years. You said you had "a relative." I can't extrapolate from that how nearly or distantly this relative is related. That is why I asked whether this situation is going on right now. Even if it were two generations ago, if the situation being publicized or brought up again hurt a living person, it's best avoided. All families have stories, many of which are not pleasant. Even if the story is fairly well known, that doesn't mean that it needs to be stirred up again if it hurts someone. I don't know why you think I'm not making sense.

 

Tara

[Mrs Mungo]

I'm not assigning malicious intent to her initial actions, but I am to her stubborn refusal to take the mother's feelings about her son's name into account. People can be unintentionally rude or hurtful; what they do AFTER they have been informed that an issue is sensitive says a lot.

 

Like I said, the drama could easily be avoided by going about it in other ways.

 

 

You did not indicate that these people had been dead for hundreds of years. You said you had "a relative." I can't extrapolate from that how nearly or distantly this relative is related.

 

So, why immediately go to malicious intent? That I am unkind, insensitive, etc? You didn't wait for an answer before assigning those adjectives to my intent.

 

That is why I asked whether this situation is going on right now. Even if it were two generations ago, if the situation being publicized or brought up again hurt a living person, it's best avoided. All families have stories, many of which are not pleasant. Even if the story is fairly well known, that doesn't mean that it needs to be stirred up again if it hurts someone. I don't know why you think I'm not making sense.

 

I so very strongly disagree with this that there are not even words. Family histories are part of our *shared history.* My relatives (close and distant) went through some pretty terrible times that inform me and my views today.

 

I was recently given a letter that had been sent to one of my great-aunts who had been doing genealogical research a long time ago. My aunt had written the widow of a relative asking about where they had lived and such. The letter she received was like something out of a romance novel. The couple had only been married a short time before the husband died, but he had obviously been the love of her life. She truly should have been a writer. Did it cause some pain that someone wrote her and asked her about her first husband? Possibly. But, it was also obviously cathartic for her to write about as she went on and on about him. That is one of the least controversial examples that I can think of in my own family history and research.

 

History is too easily forgotten by people who wish to cause no pain to others. I don't want to white-wash people's pain who were stolen from their parents and stuck in "religious" boarding schools. I don't want to white-wash the pain of people who whose parents were ostracized due to their unconventional marriage and died young as a result of their marginalization. The whole idea of it is EXTREMELY offensive to me.

[Haiku]

So, why immediately go to malicious intent? That I am unkind, insensitive, etc? You didn't wait for an answer before assigning those adjectives to my intent.

 

I didn't. I wasn't accusing you of anything. I was using that story as an example how people could doggedly pursue the truth even in the face of hurting relatives. I was using "you" in the general sense, and I realize I didn't make myself clear. For that I apologize.

 

That is one of the least controversial examples that I can think of in my own family history and research.

 

I think we are talking about different things here. If the woman who received the letter didn't want to discuss her dead husband, she didn't have to. The wrong was not in the asking; it would have been in pursuing this woman's story even if she asked "you" not to with the knowledge that doing so was causing her pain.

 

I'm thinking you either don't understand me or that we just simply don't agree about this issue, at all, in any way.

 

History is too easily forgotten by people who wish to cause no pain to others.

 

I am speaking only of using information about living people or their immediate relatives in ways that are hurtful to them. I have never strayed from that into any broader context. I have multiple times here told the story of how my great-grandmother lost 3 children (100 years ago this year!) in one week to scarlet fever and another disease that I can't recall right now. That is history. If my great-grandmother or my grandmother (sibling of those lost children) were around and pained by that story, I would not tell it or circulate it in a document amongst the family. That's the only point I am trying to make.

 

Tara

[Mrs Mungo]

I'm thinking you either don't understand me or that we just simply don't agree about this issue, at all, in any way.

 

 

 

I am speaking only of using information about living people or their immediate relatives in ways that are hurtful to them. I have never strayed from that into any broader context. I have multiple times here told the story of how my great-grandmother lost 3 children (100 years ago this year!) in one week to scarlet fever and another disease that I can't recall right now. That is history. If my great-grandmother or my grandmother (sibling of those lost children) were around and pained by that story, I would not tell it or circulate it in a document amongst the family. That's the only point I am trying to make.

 

Yes, so I am thinking we strongly disagree. I think to ignore those children as offspring would be more painful that relating the fact that they existed, but died at young ages.

[Haiku]

Yes, so I am thinking we strongly disagree. I think to ignore those children as offspring would be more painful that relating the fact that they existed, but died at young ages.

 

And I do that now.

 

Let me ask you, though, because I really want to understand where you are coming from.

 

If your mother were upset whenever you brought up painful memories from her past, would you continue to bring them up to her and in her presence? Or would you document them privately for yourself and not make them public family news until after your mother passed?

 

Tara

[Murphy101]

I question the legality as well in my family member's case. To put the name there, you are promising that he was the biological father.

 

It is perfectly legal and always has been, because the notion that it is promising anything is completely false.

 

But, adoption is part of an individual's history, and part of shared human history. If we just pretended that it didn't happen, our conception of the past would be completely different. The act of adoption, what leads up to it, and its effects shape not only the individual but society. Acknowledging it helps individuals deal with it and helps historians (not to mention sociologists and other diaciplines) track movement patterns of people, interpersonal relationships, etc. imagine what our history books would look like if there was never any acknowledgment of adoption or illegitimacy.

 

...

 

There are so very many questions that can be asked. We can't answer any of them if we fail to acknowledge the basic fundamental fact that families are made, physically and socially, in so many different ways.

 

:001_huh: we can't answer anything about it without those people willingly divulging that info. We can speculate. Maybe we can piece bits together to give a more educated guess, but that's it. Historians disagree, often and many times by a wide margin.

 

Most people are not naive enough to think adoption, illegitimacy and so forth didn't or doesn't exist. There are many questions to be asked of the living, if they want to share it. But if the dead want to take it to their grave, I really don't care and for the most part am happily going my merry way without knowing any of it about my family. Someone else might obviously feel differently, but that doesn't obligate anyone to give them information or appreciate them digging or speculating about it. And the knowledge that they do just makes people more private, such as myself, make a mental note to never discuss anything with more depth that current weather forecasts with them.

 

Your sister is in violation of privacy laws and should be reported. She has absolutely no business looking up anyone's information outside of billing purposes, and even then, she should avoid looking into the files of people she knows personally. She most definitely needs to be reported. In my hospital, this is grounds for immediate termination.

 

I know. I want to. I'm furious that I can't even take my daughter in for sedation dentistry without a suspicious whatever from my sister. But I'm also feeling horrid at the idea of putting someone, especially family even tho I almost never see/speak to her, out of job during rough times. Especially as I doubt she would be able to get another job anywhere. Maybe ever at her age. Should I feel guilty about it? Probably not. Still do tho. Wish to hell she'd been born with the same conscious and I wouldn't have this problem.:glare:

 

Shrug. That's true only for the dishonest.

 

Will my friend tell her dd? Of course, when she is an adult. Knowledge is power. Letting your child plan for the future, then be blindsided or killed by a treatable genetic disease is just callous.

 

It is not even dishonest. If you talk to my sister, she actually believes her own carp. And some of it is simply taking honest speculation as truth. Given my grandmother's description of how her baby sister died, maybe it's likely she died of x. It might even be a solidly reasonable speculation. But it is still speculation.

 

I was recently given a letter that had been sent to one of my great-aunts who had been doing genealogical research a long time ago. My aunt had written the widow of a relative asking about where they had lived and such.

 

The key difference is she WANTED to do that for your relative. That's great and I don't think anyone would say otherwise.

 

However, you seem to imply that if she had refused to discuss it, then you would have a negative view of her.

 

History is too easily forgotten by people who wish to cause no pain to others. I don't want to white-wash people's pain who were stolen from their parents and stuck in "religious" boarding schools. I don't want to white-wash the pain of people who whose parents were ostracized due to their unconventional marriage and died young as a result of their marginalization. The whole idea of it is EXTREMELY offensive to me.

 

 

Who is asking you to white wash anything for them? Who are you to make any claims upon THEIR pain? There is a huge difference between honesty based on first hand facts and speculation.

 

I guess your extreme offense is mutual.

[StartingOver]

Genealogy is the history of our family. Or HER-STORY in this case. The aunt may tell her story any way she wishes. The mother can write her own any way she wishes. Then future generations can sort it all out.

 

I find this whole debate a bit funny.

 

My mother and her sisters told me for over 20 years that their father was Joseph and he had a brother Peter. That they came over on a ship as infants from Sweden. Imagine my surprise 24 years later when I find that he has a brother named James, and his father is Pirant, and his father was Archibald.. LOL Archibald was born in VA. Yeah, my great grandfather disowned his daughter for marrying beneath her. They all lived within and hours drive their whole life. I love genealogy.

Edited October 15, 2012 by StartingOver

[Murphy101]

And I do that now.

 

Let me ask you, though, because I really want to understand where you are coming from.

 

If your mother were upset whenever you brought up painful memories from her past, would you continue to bring them up to her and in her presence? Or would you document them privately for yourself and not make them public family news until after your mother passed?

 

Tara

 

See now I don't agree with that either. I just don't accept duplicitous practices very well. If it is something I don't want someone I love to know, for whatever reason, then I sure am not going to decide to keep it documented for future use after they are dead. I just don't get that at all. That is just not how my mind works. If its wrong to do it now, it highly unlikely to suddenly become right the day after they day or twenty years after they die.

 

My history, my life is MINE to share or not as I feel inclined. I give the same respect to anyone else.

[Haiku]

My history, my life is MINE to share or not as I feel inclined. I give the same respect to anyone else.

 

I understand that. I am not talking about secrets people wish to keep buried, just things that they would rather not talk about. I was well into adulthood before my father told me how his mother died. It's not a secret, but it's not something he likes to think or talk about, so I don't. But I will share it with my children when they grow up/my father is no longer around because, as I said, it's not a secret, it's just not something we blithely discuss.

 

Tara

[SKL]

Who is asking you to white wash anything for them? Who are you to make any claims upon THEIR pain? There is a huge difference between honesty based on first hand facts and speculation.

 

I'm not exactly sure where each person is drawing the line here, but I agree in principle. My kids were adopted internationally. There are popular, "well-thought-of" organizations that believe it is better for a child to be left a destitute, exploited orphan in her birth country than to be "stripped of her roots" via international adoption. Hence elaborate tales have been told (or blown way out of proportion based on a few real stories) to color the entire international adoption industry as a dark, evil baby-selling trade, and the adoptive parents either unwitting fools or unethical baby snatchers. I read the worst of these before my adoption and was very careful to investigate the legality and ethicality thereof. But, all that is a private matter as it really doesn't make good Thanksgiving table discussion. I would be really upset if someone decided to be smart and "recreate" the "history" of my adoption based on non-personal "documents" available around that time. Imagine my kids reading that carp someday and not realizing how much of it was "speculation" vs. "fact."

[SKL]

Another thing I'd keep in mind is that this stuff doesn't just come out when you decide after someone old dies. It comes out when YOU die. If you get hit by a bus tomorrow and you have nasty stuff written up about some of your living or recent relatives, out it comes.

[angela in ohio]

Someone else may have already mentioned this, but there is no guarantee of knowing paternity in most cases, even based on what is written on a tree. Unless your family was royalty or something, there could be this same type of *ahem* innacuracy in anyone's family tree. I know this is a shock, but children are not always the biological children of the man a woman is married to. ;)

Edited October 15, 2012 by angela in ohio

[Spryte]

I question the legality as well in my family member's case. To put the name there, you are promising that he was the biological father. In my family's case, Someone else out there is the actual bio-dad who never had a chance to know that because Mom never told him. If he came across them someday, he could challenge the birth certificate and win on the basis of his genetics. Putting someone's name illegally on a legal document doesn't make it legal. It also doesn't mean that I think any less of the relationship between the man who took on the role of father and the child in question.

 

I think the legality issue is confusing here, too, and could really play into the aunt's responses. Maybe she thinks that the husband is not the "father" either biologically *or* legally?

 

Are you sure the family member put the name on the birth certificate illegally?

 

I have no idea of the legalities of the change your family member made, so I can't hazard a guess on that one. But I do think changing the name on a BC would be rather difficult unless one followed legal procedures - so there must be some reason to think that she followed legal precedent.

 

As for promising that this person is the biological father... Hmmm... My name is on my DS's birth certificate - so is DH's. Everything was legal, all handled by attorneys, and it is typical in adoption to issue a new birth certificate. So, yes, we are on the BC, even though we are not genetically related. Legally, though, we are his parents. The BC is a legal document. Though there is a sealed original BC out there, somewhere, with the birthparents' names - though access to that would be near impossible.

 

Another weird example - in our state, if a child is born to a married woman, but is not the child of the woman's husband... The child has 2 fathers under our laws. One legal father (the husband, with all responsibilities) and one biological. Which one should go on the BC? (I don't actually know the answer to this, as per the law, but it is interesting to ponder. I lean toward the biological father, personally, but I bet there are others who'd say it should be the father raising the child - after all, he has responsibility for the child, and how else would he have decision-making powers/protection in the case of divorce, etc?)

 

Maybe the best option on genealogical issues is to do as others have pointed out, and notate things privately, but make public and accessible to the family only that which will not hurt living people's feelings. It is a conundrum though, as accuracy (meaning complete notes and info) is a good goal.

[shinyhappypeople]

The software that I use? I would enter the names on their birth certificates and their current legal names. I would have you as their mom with a note about known/unknown information on their birth parents.

 

:iagree: It's really not complicated unless you want it to be. I use ancestry.com, so here's how it works with my daughter who was adopted as an infant. She's in my family tree with her current legal name. I then went to her profile, clicked on "Facts and Events" and added two events: (1) the date we picked her up, incl. location and who she was living with at the time and then (2) the date that her adoption was finalized.

 

ETA: You can also not different names a person has gone by and then choose which is the "preferred" name.

Edited October 15, 2012 by shinyhappypeople

[Mrs Mungo]

Most people are not naive enough to think adoption, illegitimacy and so forth didn't or doesn't exist. There are many questions to be asked of the living, if they want to share it. But if the dead want to take it to their grave, I really don't care and for the most part am happily going my merry way without knowing any of it about my family. Someone else might obviously feel differently, but that doesn't obligate anyone to give them information or appreciate them digging or speculating about it. And the knowledge that they do just makes people more private, such as myself, make a mental note to never discuss anything with more depth that current weather forecasts with them.

 

And yet, if the paper trail is there, then it doesn't preclude the information from getting out, regardless of what they wanted.

 

The key difference is she WANTED to do that for your relative. That's great and I don't think anyone would say otherwise.

 

However, you seem to imply that if she had refused to discuss it, then you would have a negative view of her.

 

In what way have I implied that? I would go with the paper trail that I had and leave it at that. But, I would still know and document the fact of the marriage.

 

Who is asking you to white wash anything for them? Who are you to make any claims upon THEIR pain? There is a huge difference between honesty based on first hand facts and speculation.

 

Exactly. Hence, the desire to document known facts in the present.

 

If your mother were upset whenever you brought up painful memories from her past, would you continue to bring them up to her and in her presence? Or would you document them privately for yourself and not make them public family news until after your mother passed?

 

I really don't know what you mean by this.

 

For example, the fact that your grandmother had siblings who passed away young is a fact. The intimate details of that have little to do with genealogy. The fact that someone's father died is a fact. The intimate details of his passing are not a story for the genealogy tree. These are different things.

 

Another thing I'd keep in mind is that this stuff doesn't just come out when you decide after someone old dies. It comes out when YOU die. If you get hit by a bus tomorrow and you have nasty stuff written up about some of your living or recent relatives, out it comes.

 

One, all of my stuff is password protected. And, I don't think facts are nasty. :glare:

[Pamela H in Texas]

I'm not assigning malicious intent to her initial actions, but I am to her stubborn refusal to take the mother's feelings about her son's name into account. People can be unintentionally rude or hurtful; what they do AFTER they have been informed that an issue is sensitive says a lot.

 

Right. I think that the aunt just wanted to be accurate, was a bit curious maybe. I even think it would have been fine to respectfully question it a little further, such as, "oh, I thought child had a different name at birth, no? Is there a story you'd like to share? Or I can just put the name you said earlier with no further note. It is up to you :)" But instead, the aunt overstepped, I think. She went to the niece's mother (sister-in-law) and questioned further. Then dug further. Then emailed that she found the information no one would give her. Maybe she feels bad about it now?

 

I think the legality issue is confusing here, too, and could really play into the aunt's responses. Maybe she thinks that the husband is not the "father" either biologically *or* legally?

 

Hmmm, I guess I would have thought that it is legally so just because everything in the child's life is with that name and father. Sure, it could be fraudulent, but no one is really ever going to care about that. The gov't is happy enough with the birth certificate and social security information saying it. They'll be fine with the driver's license. Everyone else will be fine with the diplomas and transcripts. The child's children may have that name. Seriously, regardless, it just IS and no one is really going to question it, are they?

 

ETA: BTW, I don't think we need to cover over the truth. We just don't have to share every tidbit either. I sure do like finding "skeletons" myself. I won't deny someone mine. But I'll be respectful of sharing other people's :)

Edited October 15, 2012 by 2J5M9K

[Kathryn]

Hmmm, I guess I would have thought that it is legally so just because everything in the child's life is with that name and father. Sure, it could be fraudulent, but no one is really ever going to care about that. The gov't is happy enough with the birth certificate and social security information saying it. They'll be fine with the driver's license. Everyone else will be fine with the diplomas and transcripts. The child's children may have that name. Seriously, regardless, it just IS and no one is really going to question it, are they?

 

ETA: BTW, I don't think we need to cover over the truth. We just don't have to share every tidbit either. I sure do like finding "skeletons" myself. I won't deny someone mine. But I'll be respectful of sharing other people's :)

 

The response you quoted was in response to my family member's situation. The father of child one was never given an opportunity to find out about his child. The father of child two wanted to keep his child and the mother moved to another city and married someone else who then signed away rights for another man's child. I can't say for sure about the first man, but I know the second cared. And my relative and her husband committed fraud in both instances. When I had my children, the paperwork I was given in the hospital outlined how to legally fill out the birth certificate and included detailed instructions about what was permissible in the father section.

[thewaka]

Too snarky. Sorry.

Edited October 15, 2012 by thewaka

[OnTheBrink]

I know. I want to. I'm furious that I can't even take my daughter in for sedation dentistry without a suspicious whatever from my sister. But I'm also feeling horrid at the idea of putting someone, especially family even tho I almost never see/speak to her, out of job during rough times. Especially as I doubt she would be able to get another job anywhere. Maybe ever at her age. Should I feel guilty about it? Probably not. Still do tho. Wish to hell she'd been born with the same conscious and I wouldn't have this problem.:glare:

 

 

 

I know how you feel. But honestly, she's in violation of privacy law. If she loses her job, whose fault is it but her own? She knows she's breaking the law each time she accesses a patient file she has no business being in. I understand your conundrum. Maybe letting her know you know she's doing this, and toss in the little gem that she can be fined $25K for each violation. That's each time she got into someone's file. And if she does lose her job, she'll never work in any position that requires confidentiality. Maybe remind her of that, too. All it would take is for someone to ask for an audit of their file. Each time she gets into a patient chart, it's going to be logged. (I'm assuming this hospital uses an electronic health file). So, if anyone else she knows get a hint that she may have done that to their information, and they ask for an audit? It's all over. She is really playing with fire. Patient privacy is a very serious thing.

 

Having said all that, I still wouldn't blame you for not reporting her. She IS your sister. :grouphug:

[Murphy101]

When I had my children, the paperwork I was given in the hospital outlined how to legally fill out the birth certificate and included detailed instructions about what was permissible in the father section.

 

No matter who signs as mother or father, the rights of the bio parent are NOT terminated. Any parent who later found out could still seek custody and parental rights as long as they could prove it via DNA.

 

Signing in the father slot does not mean you have to be the biological father. Is there a separate birth certificate for IVF babies? And once married, the husband is automatically presumed the father of any children his wife gives birth to and he may legally sign as father.

 

Even then, if another man wanted to claim paternity of the child, regardless of the name on the certificate or whether the woman is married, he can sue at any time for a paternity test.

 

I know how you feel. But honestly, she's in violation of privacy law. If she loses her job, whose fault is it but her own? She knows she's breaking the law each time she accesses a patient file she has no business being in. I understand your conundrum. Maybe letting her know you know she's doing this, and toss in the little gem that she can be fined $25K for each violation. That's each time she got into someone's file. And if she does lose her job, she'll never work in any position that requires confidentiality. Maybe remind her of that, too. All it would take is for someone to ask for an audit of their file. Each time she gets into a patient chart, it's going to be logged. (I'm assuming this hospital uses an electronic health file). So, if anyone else she knows get a hint that she may have done that to their information, and they ask for an audit? It's all over. She is really playing with fire. Patient privacy is a very serious thing.

 

Having said all that, I still wouldn't blame you for not reporting her. She IS your sister. :grouphug:

 

Yeah. Pretty much. To say I find it annoying is an understatement. I don't even know who I would report it to.:glare:

[Murphy101]

As a side note, any woman could just leave it blank and give her child any name, including last name, she wants. Just think of the havoc that would wreck on geneology records! :001_tt2: :)