The Harsher Realities of Genealogical Research
Commercials for online genealogy services like Ancestry tend to give viewers an idealized image of the discoveries that come from family history research. They only present the positives, leaving viewers with a warm and fuzzy feeling. The reality of genealogy though is that you never know what you’re going to find until the research is done.
Some discoveries may not be happy or pretty at all. Some may even be heart-wrenching or difficult to process. You may learn some disturbing things or find stories for which you just aren’t prepared. That’s the chance you take when you begin looking into the lives of human beings. After all, people are the subject of genealogy and people by their very nature are flawed. They make decisions or choices that can be challenging to understand or impossible to justify.
A few years ago, a friend of mine shared a video clip on social media that was a comedic skit featuring an interracial couple that decided to have a genealogist prepare their family histories before getting married. They discovered that the white fiancée’s ancestors were the slaveholders of the black fiancé’s ancestors. Needless to say, the skit ended with a meltdown and breakup in the genealogist’s office. Now making such an incendiary discovery is unlikely, but this skit touches on some ugly and painful truths in our shared history, particularly in the United States.
If you’re from the U.S. and your family has been here for more than 150 years, then one way or another, slavery is a reality quite likely to rear it’s disgusting head in your family tree. It’s also by no means the only hard truth that you may learn from your ancestors’ stories.
Within my own family tree, I’ve found multiple suicides, many unhappy marriages, abandoned children, incidents of sexual violence, alcohol and drug abuse, criminal activities, and domestic abuse, among other disappointing and deplorable details. These stories are part of my own family history and are therefore part of what has shaped my family today.
You’re looking into the lives of people, so you may find out things that temporarily crush rather than uplift you. There may be things that disappoint rather than make you proud. Every discovery, even the sad, traumatic, or perplexing ones are part of your family history.
The difficult details in genealogical research aren’t always the result of personal choices or decisions either. You’re likely to learn about tragedies and losses that were completely outside your ancestors’ control as well. A family tree that doesn’t contain some heartbreak is truly unusual. But even the most heartbreaking of family histories also inevitably contain kernels of hope and stories of triumph, with people who faced and overcame challenges and difficulties, tragedies and terrifying events. You’re just as likely to find greatness as you are to find sadness, and you may even find both within the same individual, because that’s the way people so often work.
Family history discoveries can be equal parts painful and traumatic and enlightening and illuminating. Most family trees contain scoundrels and heroes, perpetrators and victims, and interesting characters and boring ones. Almost every family is shaped by horrific as well as happy tales. Your family tree is made up of people and people are complex. Why would we ever expect then that a family history won’t be?