Saturday, June 5, 2010

Is there confidentiality if it's not your family?

I have researched a family that is not related to me at all. It happened when I came across a newspaper article in 1888 while researching my family. I became intrigued with the story and wondered about the outcome. It was a story of a young nine-year-old girl who was "outraged" by her father and when she was convinced that she was safe from him, reported that he had killed her mother several months earlier. 

I could not get that little girl out of my head and wanted to know what became of her. I subsequently learned quite a bit about the family as I researched it, and have written an article on the research. Here's the dilemma...I am a little bit hesitant to do anything with the article (although I may put it up on this blog) because it is not my family. Am I just being too conscientious and hung up on confidentiality, which, of course, I have no legal obligation to be...it just feels strange to me. I'm sure that if the subject matter wasn't so horrendous, I wouldn't feel these qualms. Surely authors write about different issues/people without permission, especially if the events occurred over a hundred years ago. So help me out...is there any reason that I can't write and publish an article about a family not related to me?

Using Ancestry.com Hints

I hope that everyone is using Ancestry.com family trees. I know that some people are not fans of ancestry.com, but I have had such good luck with contacts made there. I am a huge fan of the ancestry hints that are given. I have located so many missing census records through their "hints". If you haven't tried it yet, when you are on the home page of Ancestry.com look about halfway down the page to where it says "About this tree", then "View People with Hints". It lists all the people in your database that they have located records for. It is incredibly helpful!  Of course, it is necessary to research the hints to be sure they are accurate and are about your ancestors! Good luck!