Every genealogist knows it can happen. They know it will probably happen.
We don't always know what the skeleton will be. What is a skeleton to me, might not upset another person and vice versa.
When we think of the family skeletons we think we'll find an event that at the very least wasn't acceptable during the time that our ancestor lived. Did great, great, great Aunt Mary really have a baby before she had a husband? Or maybe their was a bank robber in the family. Oh no, we're related to Jesse James.
In my case, today I found something that made me physically ill. Sadly, this ancestor did nothing illegal for the time and place he lived.
In 1820, my 4X great grandfather had a son and a wife and twenty-four slaves. As I stared at the ages of the slaves and the number of slaves my stomach churned. I was sick. Physically sick to my stomach. Twenty-four slaves for three people. Appalling.
Please don't give me a history lesson that there were slaves of all colors and nationalities. I know that. I have no idea what the breakdown of races and nationalities were in my ancestors stable of slaves since the Federal government didn't think it was important enough to differentiate one class or race of owned people from the others. Maybe I'll hit a brick wall with my Irish side because this ancestor owned their parents a few generations back before their descendants married.
Yet he did nothing illegal. He was well within the laws of the times.
A few people have tried to comfort me with those exact words. It was the way things were back then. It was legal.
Yes, it was legal. It was the way things were done back then.
Just as beating your wife was legal if she displeased you by burning the biscuits. Or if she got her soap too lye heavy. Or whatever reason her husband wanted to come up with just so he could beat her.
There were many men served burned biscuits and washed in lye heavy soap who didn't beat their wives. Legally they could, but morally and ethically they chose not to. They viewed her as their equal in rights of the home. They couldn't give her property since a woman couldn't own property. But they treated her as an equal.
Today there are a lot of things that are legal, but it doesn't make it morally or ethically right if you partake of the legal activity. Brothels are legal in several counties in Nevada. Legally any man who has the money can walk into one and enjoy the company of a prostitute. Ethically and morally his wife won't care that he hadn't broken any laws.
This is how I view my ancestor who didn't break any laws of his time. Morally and ethically he was wrong. Even in 1820 there was plenty of debate across the states about the wrongness of owning another human being.
The fact that he found nothing immoral or unethical about "owning" twenty-four human beings disturbes me.
One small bit of satisfaction in all this. This man's granddaughter went on to marry the son of my great, great, great grandmother who was very active in the underground railroad. Grandma Rachel is the kind of ancestor that makes me proud when I find her. Shame on you, Granddad Richard. You've embarrassed your descendants.
It just goes to show, we never know what we'll find that we wish we hadn't found. It's not always an ancestor doing something illegal.
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