Do you ever feel that you are intruding on the lives of your ancestors.

[Dossie]

Hi all,Just sitting here wondering where to go next with the hunt for my Great Aunt's life. Birth, marriage, children etc., etc., and the thought suddenly struck me that I was being really nosey and peeping through the net curtains. Does anyone else sometimes feel like that or is it just me. Mind you I am not going to stop!!!

Dossie

[Guy]

No never, I have had an interest in family history for the last 63 years and in that time I have never felt I was being nosey or intruding.
On many occasions I have felt my ancestors have helped me my making me turn another couple of pages in a register when I have been ready to go home or taken me straight to an area or even a grave in a strange graveyard, but I have never felt I was intruding. (By the way I have never felt frightened in any graveyard any of my ancestors are buried in but I was really frightened by a feeling of evil one summer afternoon in a graveyard I was transcribing and photographing for the internet.
I don’t mind admitting I had to leave early and go back the next day.)

There again by thinking about my ancestors and researching them I feel I am keeping them "alive" or rather ensuring they are not lost in time.
Whether that makes a difference I don't know.

Cheers
Guy

[Tilly Mint]

No, I've never felt nosy although I have often thought what my ancestors would think. I feel privileged to be able to look back in time and find my roots...I just wish the ancestors could help me out a bit though and reveal themselves in some small way....not themselves ....some paperwork would help......I wait in hope. I enjoy every minute of the "chase" and have had other posters help me get some research.

[Anne in Carlisle]

No never....... like Guy I feel I am keeping the memory of my ancestors alive. I specially feel this about all the tiny children who never had a life at all. I try hard to get their brief details right as the only memorial they have.
Anne

[JudithM]

Not nosy, but I did feel very strange when I found my unmarried 2x gt grandmother on the 1841 census (taken in early June) and I realised that whilst she was probably still unaware of her situation I knew that she was pregnant and by the following spring would give birth to her first child. The father did, by the way stand by her and after living together for nearly 40 years they eventually married in 1880 ;)

[vera2013]

No not nosey.I want to have some understanding of how my ancestors lived. However have hesitated in adding full details of a couple of 'surprises' to my tree as I felt that would not be something they would like the the world to know. Or maybe it's because I wouldn't like the world to know?

Vera

[Dossie]

I think my feelings have their roots in the fact that my maternal grandmother deliberately kept her life before marrying a secret and maybe I am wondering subconsciously whether I should let it lie. If she did not want to tell maybe I should not go rooting around in her past. It is her sister I was searching when the thought struck me but as I said I am still going to go rooting around in the past - after all it is exciting and I have written the biography of my grandfather who was much respected by his family. I have all his document so his grandchildren will never wonder what he did where he went etc.
Dorothy

[GallowayLass]

If they are gone from us, then no I don't feel nosey and like other posters, I feel more that I am making sure they are not forgotten. Should there be any skeletons in the any cupboards, I do not share this information with others who contact me unless they already know enough detail to convince me that all they need is confirmation that their research is correct.
In my mother's family we have a living female who was informally adopted in - in fact the couple informally adopted twice. Both of the girls were actually related, both illegitimate and one of them has a convoluted family history that it took me ages to work out. I had wondered about who they really were for some time and a relative in common pointed me in the right direction. I asked him if he would ask her if I could visit her and ask about her own family. The lady declined and actually point blank denied to my contact that she was the person I thought she was!!
I thought fine - if she wants to maintain her facade, that's her right and I will not discuss it with anybody else. I know exactly who she really is and everything is recorded in my offline tree so that's enough for me.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Well, I DO feel rude, lol, but that is probably to do with the way I was brought up, that is, it is rude to ask people personal questions and it is even ruder and sneakier to go behind their backs to find out things. It hasn't stopped me researching my tree but I do feel a bit guilty and snoopy if living people are involved. For that reason I have no living people on my tree and no recently dead ones either. I do have offline notes though!

The other side of that coin is that I get very cross and upset about all the tragedies, large and small, which have gone unremarked by my family and I am proud that I have them on my tree. They deserve to be remembered.

OC

[Giddysue]

Yes, initially I felt intrusive when I discovered my dad had never married my mum because he had married during WWII in Egypt and had a son. My sister and I grew up in a happy family life with our parents and it was not until I was in my 50s that I found out about my dad's 'other' family. I realised then my parents had not wanted my sister and I to know those details so subsequently I definitely felt NOSEY....

My sister questioned my discovery and took a little while to accept the facts (verified by dad's marriage certificate and our half-brother's birth certificate), however then we both decided we wanted to know more details .....

For the past ten years I have tried desperately to ascertain what happened to dad's wife and what happened to her and their son when he returned to England in 1948 (he then resumed his life with my mum and I was born a little later. Unfortunately my quest has been, at this current time, unsuccessful but I will not give up hope - my nosey nature will persist until I can find a conclusive result, whatever that may be!

[Janet in Yorkshire]

I don't feel nosey when delving into the past, but am sensitive about with whom I am willing to share my findings.
I was brought up in a small village where just about every native adult resident knew the full pedigree and family history of all the other households, warts and all, although care was taken never to intentionally "upset" anyone with a tactless comment. When a child, I used to accompany my grandmother on her afternoon visits to other ladies, when tea was taken along with a good old natter. I was seated in a corner, with my book (children were seen but not heard) and pretended to "read," although I used to listen to the fascinating conversations about events when the ladies were young, tales of their relatives and neighbours and also the whispered "scandals". However, another person's secrets were never revealed to members of their family and care was taken not to cause upset by revealing to anyone what was known about them. I think my interest in the past, in how people lived their lives and in the events which happened to them stem from these afternoon visits - my grandmother used to sell national saving stamps (a hang over from WW2) and had a weekly/fortnightly programme of afternoon visits.
Village life has changed. Those of us who are natives still talk about some of the characters from the past and laugh WITH them, whilst in the main, incomers hear tales about former residents and laugh AT them. This often doesn't go down well as they have no understanding of the context in which these people lived - a rather frosty "that lady was my great-aunt" or "times were hard - did you also know that her husband was killed in an accident and she was left to provide for and to bring up eight children by herself?" can be quite effective in defending those long gone.

I am very "precious" on behalf of those who are gone and cannot speak for themselves when being judged by people of today.

Jay

[Olde Crone Holden]

Jay

Lol! Exactly the same with me, I spent a lot of time with my Victorian great great aunts and their visiting buddies and quickly learned to keep very quiet and still if I wanted to hear some interesting stuff! I can still hear their voices in my head - "no, no, you're wrong, Cora's sister in law married that chap who had the greengrocers, his father was called Billy and he went off with that woman from the newsagents" "oh yes, my auntie was in service with her, said she wasn't surprised because her apron was always dirty" And so on. I am convinced that Alan Bennett knew my aunties!

They were lovely, kindly women who loved a good gossip and were very fond of the moral high ground, at least officially. Long after they had died I discovered that one had married at 14 to a 38 year old relative, ex policeman. She was pregnant. The second was 3 months pregnant when she married and the third, never married, had been heavily fined for hitting a man with her umbrella, pmsl, defending her right to walk a public pathway!

OC

[Dossie]

Hi Olde Crone Holden. I am in a fortunate position that I know a lot about my Aunts and Uncles as my Mum and Grandfather were both talkers of their past but my maternal grandmother told her family nothing about her life whatsoever. It was when I started to search for her sister in the hope that this search would lead me to Grandma the feeling of intrusion into her and her families life was I suppose linked to the fact that perhaps that if Granny did not want her family to know therefore perhaps I should leave it alone and not keep on digging. What stopped her telling may have been something that nowadays we would think nothing off and who am I to keep on persisting with my search. However, I cannot let it go now... well it will be difficult as I may only be a step away. I am, I suppose entitled to know "my roots" or am I. I know the fact that mum did not know about her mother bothered her and what I have discovered so far from my search into her Aunt's family is that my mum and her cousins were both alive at the same time but there were no genealogy sites on-line in the early eighties and no PC's at least I did not have one.

Dorothy

[Olde Crone Holden]

Dossier

Yes, I find it very sad that family secrets usually turn out to be something we think nothing of, today. Illegitimacy mostly, so many people were ashamed of this, but I also discovered that one side of my family never spoke to the other side for over 80 years because of a divorce! Another shameful family secret was that a maiden aunt had been engaged but called it off when they could not reconcile their religious differences. She was Congregational and he was Baptist, for goodness sake. So very sad and what a waste of a life.

OC

[Dossie]

Hi OC. I know what you mean about religious differences. My parents' were different religions and although not openly hostile towards me I did not get the birthday and Christmas and gifts that came the way of my cousins from my Grandparents' So sad and for what..... to show your disapproval of their choice of spouse through a child. I must say I feel sorry for them. They are long gone now but such is life.

Dossie