Protecting our Ancestors

One doesn't have to have traced their ancestors before all of a sudden they notice something happening. You want to protect all these lovely ancestors of yours.

How on earth can you protect people who have died? One of the best ways to protect them is to make sure the information you present to others is accurate.

What about that great, great, great aunt or uncle who either died young, or is really the one you found with the same name after they disappear for a period of time? You can't be 100% accurate on that one, can you? Without new information, no you can't. So, you have two choices. One, keep the maybe information to yourself and note when and where you lost that particular ancestor. The other option is to present the questionable information, but explain in detail why this could be your ancestor and why it might not be your ancestor. Then let others decide for themselves if they care enough about that ancestor to know for sure what happened.

Which one should you really do? You can do what I do. I keep two sets of records. It depends on who is receiving the information as to what set of records they get. Some will only get the records that stop at the last accurate, 100% provable record with a note that this ancestor disappears after this record. Those closer to my inner circle of genealogy will get the full set of records, which includes a written explanation of how I made the tentative connection between the sets of records.

If you do it that way, it raises risks and benefits. One that someone will take the full set of records and run with it as the truth. That's not what we want to have happen. Another option is they will keep them and hope you do enough research to find more information to either prove or disprove your alternative theory. If we get really lucky, they'll get interested and help you find the proof to prove or disprove your theory.

To help protect my ancestors, I keep the two sets of records. The cut and dried record that's very clear. The other set where there's leads, but no clear cut answers. By selective selecting who gets what set, I reduce the risk of misinformation being plastered on the internet. Therefore I'm protecting my ancestor.

Another thing that's happened to me besides wanting to protect my ancestors, I've found I can get possessive of them. I know I'm not alone in that feeling either.

I have ancestors buried in more than just three cemeteries around here, but there are three main ones that include the majority of my direct ancestors. Walking through those cemeteries is the same as walking through a 3D family tree. Except unlike a 3D family tree those cemeteries include the family tree, but also a big old block party. All those neighbors you remember from your childhood are there, too. Many of those graves are filled with the remains of people, family and friends, that we actually knew when they were alive. We talked to them. We spent time at their homes and/or they spent time at our homes. We can hear the sound of their voice, or the way they laughed. We can't imagine anyone dishonoring them, especially in death.

Once a person starts gathering documents about their ancestors that they never knew, those who were gone long before our birth, they become as real as our ancestors and old neighbors we knew while they lived.

When I found the marriage record of Abram and Margaret from 4 Dec 1828 I realized these people had really lived. I had proof that they'd lived. I didn't have their signatures, but I had the hand written record by the justice of the peace who married them. This man took the time to sit down and log the two people he married that day so long ago. It was a young man and a young woman who stood before him. Not only that, it was my great, great, great grandparents that he saw and married that day. It made them real. Oh, I could imagine the hopes and dreams they had for a long life together on that day. Possibly they didn't have those dreams. We can't know what their dreams were or if they had dreams of their future when they married. What we do know, they lived. And sometime, no idea what time of day it was, but it was on the 4th day of December in 1828, they were legally wed.

Just as real, but sobering was when I found evidence that Margaret died and was buried in 1842. All those dreams, if they'd existed, were shattered. Not only had Margaret lived, but she'd died.

Who wouldn't want to protect the few facts available about her short life? I want to protect it and I'm possessive of her. That possessiveness is why I get angry with other "genealogists" ignore the marriage record and the grave and recreate her life to fit their theories, including marrying her off to a different brother.

When I see this, I want to own her. I want to protect her from those people. I want to honor her. She is the mother of my great, great grandfather. I want to honor her with the facts of her life. I want to honor Abram with the facts that it was he who married Margaret. I owe them that much. Look at what their marriage that started on 4 Dec 1828 has led to. They worked hard. They struggled to survive in conditions we can't imagine today. They continued to survive during tragedy.

How can we not feel protective of our ancestors? How can we not feel possessive of them?

The first time you hold one of those documents in your hand that's a record of the life your ancestor actually was real and lived a life with some of the hopes and dreams you have today, you'll get protective and possessive, too.