Hmm, I found my grandfather was quite a jerk, I mean a real A$$.

Question

Reneged on real estate sale, stole from his son, thought of ONLY himself before his family, emotionally abused his wife and children.

Should I whitewash his profile and make him "nice"? He wasn't, no, NOT at all.

Comments

 NOT to brag, but we (Cousin Mickey Riley Jr and I) discovered Warren Allen SMITH-157196 was Not Respectable. The file the Cousin Mickey built up over at Familytree is a lot more "forthcoming" than what I put in WT.  However, Cousin Carla Tucker-15058 (the PM on Warren Allen SMITH) was tolerant may she be blessed with multiple successes in profiling!! 

Answer 1

There's no need to completely 'whitewash' him.  However, on the other hand, you don't want to come off judgmental in any way, so there's no need to lean heavily on the nasty bits - or even mention them at all.

Put in the dates and places - and let the viewer do the judging. ;)

Answer 2

Alas, the Related Questions fail us this time!  Check out this thread:  https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/825016/i-have-a-very-bad-ancestor-what-to-do

Comments

Excellent answer in the original thread, Herbert!

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Thanks, EC!

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I agree with this thread, but want to add this:

If you're going to write up a factual account of their life, keep in mind living victims or their children that might come across this.

Exploitation or sexual crimes or even simple assault can be incredibly touchy, and while sometimes you can find a newspaper article about the ancestor, if it mentions a victim's name who might be alive, I'd avoid putting that into the biography.

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That was me, and I made a freespace profile with a trigger warning (let me repeat, trigger warning) and linked it in the profile. If all people want to look at is the profile, they can stick with that. Everyone involved is long dead, criminal, victim, the jurors and police and prison guards and everyone. I stayed as neutral as I could but the facts are what they are. Sources, sources, sources. I put long excerpts of the newspaper articles in. The title comes from another short article of the era that used the word "unspeakable."

I really appreciated the good advice here. In my case, I felt it should be out there. If D-- was brave enough to do what she did in 1902, then surely descendants can be brave enough to read about it.

Answer 3

All of us have good attributes and bad.  I wouldn't whitewash his faults, but may be you can also find something good.

Answer 4

I would not include any rumors, hearsay, opinions, etc. of bad behavior in the profile of someone living or who may have living immediate family who may be hurt by the information being made public. Like someone else mentioned, if the information you include might be sensitive to living individuals, it needs to be handled with great discretion. You might want to find out, how does your mother or father (if they are living) or aunts/uncles feel about you airing this information publicly in writing in a biography that will be here (or in cyberspace if copied and posted elsewhere by others) perhaps forever? Even if the misdeeds are true facts and can be sourced, they may not want yet another story out in the public domain.

Comments

Yes, much depends on whether there are living people whose sensibilities deserve to be respected.

Also consider how much of the information is publicly available and how widely it was publicized.

Family gossip about emotional abuse of the children is something I wouldn't mention. However, if the abuser is a deceased person who was convicted of child abuse and spent several years in prison for it, that's something to disclose.

Answer 5

I have some ancestors like that too. I'm sure we all do. And I have debated about putting a disclaimer on our family tree.