Open Discussion Weekend: How Much Can We Preserve?

Yesterday's Lincoln (NE) Journal-Star newspaper ran a front page story about 33,000 boxes of Lancaster County documents in storage. Many of these documents are destined to be shredded for the plain and simple reason: there is no more space!

The boxes include court cases, personal correspondence, medical records, and more. You name it, it's probably here. If the rightful owners of the documents don't come forward within the next 10 days, these documents are headed for the shredder.

The topic of this article generated some discussion on my Facebook wall yesterday, so I thought it would be a good topic for Open Discussion Weekend.

How much information is too much information? How do we, as individuals and organizations, deal with the information overload from the 20th and 21st centuries?

My local society, Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society, has wrestled with the issue. As much as we want to preserve as much genealogical history as possible, we are certainly not equipped to have the heir of a deceased genealogist drop 15 boxes of files and photographs in our laps. No amount of volunteer genealogy armies could begin to sort and digitize the information that might be donated from one researcher, let alone from 30 or 40.

To address the issue, one of our upcoming society meetings will focus on what to do with all of this Stuff. What can we preserve and what format should it be in? Can we cull enough of our research into printed (or digital) format that we can leave behind something that can be managed by our libraries and societies? Do we share it all online? How can we be sure that sharing information in the Cloud will last over the next 100 years?

What are you or your local organization doing to deal with document overload? How can we preserve our research for future genealogists and family members without being on an episode of Hoarders? Or worse yet, having someone trash it all after we are gone.

Please discuss in the comments section below.

Open Discussion Weekend - What's Your Guilty Pleasure?

Technically, it's still the weekend since today is the legal holiday for Christmas. I had been contemplating this topic for a few days, then I read Leah Kleylein's post, Let's Start Again, on her Random Notes blog.

Those of us in the genealogy blogging community spend much of our time writing about our own research, sharing our discoveries, reviewing new products and engage in stimulating discussion about our hobby/profession. But if you're like Leah or me, you may have taken a "walk on the dark side" - spending minutes, hours or days with other activities (or addictions) besides genealogy.

Sometimes, I just have to take a break from hanging out with the dead relatives. And those guilty pleasures have been drawing me away from genealogy the last four or five weeks. Well, let's face it, it all started with the arrival of my Kindle Fire, which I've already blogged about in my reviews of the product.

Apps and Games

The device has barely left my side since it arrived, but have I been using it primarly as an e-reader? Not quite. Rather than reading two or three books a week as I did on my old Kindle, I've only read about three books in the last month. What have I been doing instead? Checking out the Android Apps for the Kindle, downloading them, discarding many, keeping quite a few. Angry Birds was much too slow for me, but my time on Treasures of Montezuma borders on addiction.

Then there are the apps for magazine subscriptions - I've definitely been enjoying the tablet versions of Time,  Vanity Fair, Consumer Reports and the Smithsonian. I've also been receiving my issues of Family Tree Magazine in digital format (Adobe pdf), which is easy enough to read on the Kindle.

Let's Rock and Roll!

I've also spent quite a lot of time over the past month converting my hundreds of music CDs to mp3 format - to archive on an external drive as well as backed up in the Amazon cloud. And that also means that I've spent quite a bit of time this past month downloading dozens of free Christmas tunes from Amazon. And filling in some of my Sixties music collection with some Greatest Hits collections from my era. And some Rat Pack tunes, and a few modern country as well. It's nice to pull up my cloud collection either on the Kindle or computer and be able to listen to the songs that have provided the soundtrack for my life. In other words, I just finished uploading the entire Beatles catalog to the cloud. Next up is a collection of about 100 Paul McCartney CDs to convert and upload.

Roku Madness

As though playing with the Kindle wasn't enough, about a week and a half ago I bought a Roku video streamer box. Wowee - I though that the DVR had revolutionized the way I consume TV and movies, but since getting the Roku, "regular" TV has not even been on. I already had subscriptions to Netflix and Amazon Prime for live video streaming. I will admit, trying to watch a movie on the Kindle Fire isn't that exciting. A coworker mentioned he had a Roku, so I looked into them and selected one that best met my "needs". Clearly, a Kindle Fire and a Roku were not "needs" of my pioneer ancestors!

In addition to Amazon and Netflix, the Roku offers more than 400 video channels, many of which are free. One of the free channels I like is the BYU channel which includes The Generations Project genealogy show. Hmm ... it seems like I'm trying to justify my guilty pleasures by associating their use to a genealogy application. I've also become addicted to the "24" TV series starring Kiefer Sutherland. I'd never watched it when it aired, so I'm starting with Season One. It's always intrigued me that a non-violent person such as myself happens to love crime shows.

Reality?

I also find myself frittering away my time with Gene Simmons Family Jewels, Celebrity Apprentice, Amazing Race and Survivor. And the alphabet crime shows such as NCIS and CSI.

So there you have it. I've come clean about my "dark side" away from genealogy. Do you have the courage to admit to your guilty pleasures? If so, please post in the comments section below.

Open Discussion Weekend - What Did You Do During Family History Month?

As Family History Month comes to a close, it's a good time to reflect on what we did to further our family history research or make contributions to the genealogy community. Here's a summary of some of the things that I did during October:

• Attended a day long workshop and research opportunity at the Cass County (Nebraska) Historical Society Museum in Plattsmouth. Part 1   Part 2
• Participated in the Family History Fair sponsored by the Lincoln-Lancaster County (Nebraska) Genealogical Society. I shared information on genealogy blogging and demonstrated the Flip-Pal scanner.
• Attended the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society fall conference featuring Paul Milner.
• Actively promoted the Nebraska Genea-Peeps group on Facebook. Join us!
• Got caught up on the last few episodes of Geneabloggers Radio.
• Continued organizing my genealogy digital files in my Dropbox folder.
• Honored my Irish heritage by attending a concert by Celtic Thunder.
• Renewed my subscription to NewspaperArchive.com
• Purchased and installed Family Tree Maker 2012 and synched my family tree with Ancestry.com
• Bought a new desk chair for my genea-cave (with luck, it might get assembled this weekend!)
• Discovered some images to go along with previously discovered records on FamilySearch.org
• Discovered some cousins in the yearbook pages on Ancestry.com
• Corresponded with some people with common relatives via Ancestry.com
• Scanned family photos and documents
• Visited the grave site of my 2nd great grandparents at Calvary Cemetery here in Lincoln. Sometimes I just have to go there for a few minutes to get centered and focused. It works.
• Discovered confirmation of deaths in the newly posted Connecticut records database at Ancestry.com

What were the highlights of YOUR family history month? Feel free to share your comments below.

Open Discussion Weekend - The Name's The Same

I believe that all genealogists have experienced the frustration of discovering information about people who have the same name as our ancestors. At the time of the discovery of the document or newspaper article, we really aren't sure if this is our ancestor or cousin or not.

A couple years ago, I dismissed a huge cache of articles on NewspaperArchive.com because I mistakenly thought "this prominent person could not have possibly been a member of our family!" About six months later, I learned that this person was, indeed, related. I had to back track and rediscover those articles all over again. And with this particular subscription service, their contracts with the various newspaper database and image suppliers aren't always renewed. That means that a later search on this site may mean that the articles are no longer available.

Up for discussion and comment: What do you do with information you discover on someone who may or may not be related? Do you save a copy for further research? Do you dismiss it? If you keep the information, how do you track or file it? Do you use the information as a method of ruling out a possible event that is not connected to your research subject?

In a couple situations where people living in the same vicinity have the same name as one of my relatives, I have done the online census searches on Ancestry on "the other guy" as a means to rule out that it is "my guy." When some confusion may exist, I add a note to my guy's profile on Ancestry, along the lines of "My guy, the farmer, should not be confused with the other guy, who was a banker who lived in the neighboring town at the same time."

What is your research approach when the name's the same? Please share your insights in the Comments section below.

NOTE: Not two minutes after I originally posted this, I received an email from Ancestry.com with a link to this article: Which Guy Is Mine? Creating a Profile to Identify Your Ancestor.

Open Discussion Weekend: YOUR Ideal Season of Who Do You Think You Are?

Imagine, just for a moment, that you are the producer of the hit NBC television series, Who Do You Think You Are? What celebrities would you like to see on your perfect season of the show? And why would you choose them?

Is it because it's a particular celebrity you like or did you once read or hear something about their background that intrigued you and you'd like to learn more about?

Here are some of my choices that could make an interesting season:

• Fashion designer Stella McCartney - Dad is Paul McCartney and some of the family roots have already been published. Strong Irish background - it would be interesting to see the places where the elder McCartney and Mohin families lived. And her mother, Linda Eastman's family name was Epstein. Linda's father changed the name. That side of the family would be interesting as well.
• Whoopi Goldberg - just because.
• Russell Crowe - I know nothing about his Australian heritage, and he's an interesting enough character on his own that he surely must have some fascinating ancestors.
• Either Dan Brown or Patricia Cornwell, best selling authors. Everyone else probably wants to see J. K. Rowling, so I'd opt for a different popular author.
• Tom Hanks - because I read once that he is related to Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks.
• Brad Pitt - just so my friend, Jan, could meet her celebrity Hillhouse cousin.
• Brian Wilson, founder of the Beach Boys, who is my 10th cousin, once removed, through our common Mayflower ancestor, Francis Cooke. I'd like to see how a professional genealogist documents the lineage back to the Mayflower passengers.
• Jane Fonda, because of her family's Nebraska roots. Her father, Henry Fonda, was born and raised in Nebraska and made his acting debut at the Omaha Community Playhouse. I'd like to learn more about the older generations of that family.

Clearly, my fantasy season of WDYTYA has an unlimited budget and some private celebrities who probably would have no interest in participating. But it's my fantasy, so it doesn't matter!

Be as creative, inventive or as selfish as you like. Provide your list and your reasons in the Comments section below. Have some fun with this one!

Open Discussion Weekend: Non-blogging Genealogists

While bouncing around the social networking sites, it occurred to me that the majority of my online genealogy colleagues are bloggers. We read one another's blogs, we follow one another on Twitter and we are friends on Facebook.

That made me think about something . . . are the majority of genealogists who I associate with bloggers? Do I even know any non-blogging genealogists?

In "real" life, of course I do. There are those people I meet at genealogy conferences and classes who seem a bit perplexed when I mention that I blog about family history. Sometimes I wonder if they know what a blog really is.

So, on this Independence Day weekend, I thought it would be fun to hear from readers, whether a blogger or not, for Open Discussion Weekend. Who makes up your online social/genealogy circle? Do you mainly hang out with other bloggers, do you hang out with "normal" genealogists or is it a nice balance? Do we get so wrapped up in our blogging that we forget there are genealogists who don't blog?

If you're a blogger, what do your non-blogging genealogy friends and associates think of that? That goes for real life as well - what do your friends and spouses think about your blogging?

Have fun with this one and leave your comments below!

Open Discussion Weekend: Blogging - What's in it For You?

As I'm making the final tweaks on a presentation on genealogy blogging, I've been wondering about what motivates genealogists to blog.

Why do you blog? Here are some possible reasons:

• To document your research journey and discoveries?
• To share information with other family members?
• Hope that distant cousins will discover the blog and contact you?
• To provide a forum for family members?
• To promote your genealogy-related business?
• To connect with other genealogists?
• To plan and promote a family reunion?
• To earn extra income through affiliate links?
• To write scholarly articles about genealogy or history?

I'm sure the answers are different for every one of us. In the comments section below, please share the primary reason why you blog.

Also feel free to share why you read and follow genealogy blogs.

Be as brief or as long winded as you like - I'm just very curious about all of the different reasons that bring us to the genealogy blogging community.

Thank you for your input - I look forward to reading what everyone has to say!

Open Discussion Weekend: Letting Go of Family Artifacts

In recent weeks, I've been faced with a challenge that many of us face at some point. Growing Older. Downsizing. Moving On.

It's time for me to sell my house and move on. So over the past few weeks, I have been going through several decades accumulation of my own Stuff, as well as various items of Stuff that belonged to my ancestors. Stuff is spelled with a capital S because at some point Stuff takes on a life of its own.

Okay, so what genealogist isn't a pack rat when it comes to their family history Stuff? We've all got those photos, letters, documents, artifacts - whatever it may be - all tucked away and treasured as if it were the Holy Grail.

I have boxes and boxes of family archive paper ephemera. What has amazed me in going through the remaining boxes of my own Stuff has been the additional family archive Stuff that I probably knew I had at one time, yet had forgotten about. At least two additional boxes of goodies have emerged. Sorting through all of this will probably be my project for next winter.

But my primary goal is to downsize, lighten my load, give myself some Freedom from the shackles of Stuff. I've been telling myself that the eventual goal is to downsize to what would fit in a two-bedroom apartment. It's kind of like starting over from scratch. By the time this weekend is over, I will have emptied my house of at least half of my Stuff. I already feel lighter.

During this process enters the moment of truth. Does some of the Stuff I've been hanging on to, moving, packing and storing for decades still have any purpose in my genealogical journey? In some cases, the answer was No. Hard as may be to believe, I have let go of several items that had belonged to my ancestors. Truth be told, they were junk. For thirty years, I had thought about restoration, but it never happened. And I knew that it wasn't going to happen. I let them go. And it was a much easier decision than I thought it would be. The items really served no function in my research. No other family members have interest in the items. The items had become a burden. They're gone.

It's not like I don't have boxes and boxes of photographs, letters, autograph books, Bibles that I will continue to curate for my own pleasure. I do. And I have no regrets over what I let go. Besides, I still have a LOT.

Open for Discussion:

• Have you let go of family artifacts? If so, did you have a clear conscience or live to regret it?
• Could you never dream of letting go of anything once owned by an ancestor?
• Do you believe that you can separate your research from physical items?
• Are you weighed down by Stuff you don't want to part with?
• Are those items really a treasure or just a bunch of junk?
• Have I committed the worst sin that could ever be committed by a family historian?

Please add your thoughts in the Comments section below.

Open Discussion Weekend: Could You Walk Away From Genealogy?

Recently I've been corresponding with some cousins from different lines of my family. Back in the 1950 and 1960s one of the women in the family had gathered all kinds of research and documents on the family history. I'd seen some queries she posted in old genealogy journals as well as some references to her research.

One of the cousins shared a letter she had sent to his grandmother which confirmed much of the information I had discovered and offered some new facts and clues. I found the woman's obituary which referenced a brother and sister, which further research indicated they were step-siblings. This woman had one son, close to my age, and I wondered what ever became of all of her research and documents.

I wrote to one of the cousins inquiring if his line of the family had ever been in touch with her or her son. He sent me a copy of a letter she had written to his father in 1987. The first paragraph of the letter stated:

"About 19 years ago (1969), I destroyed much of the genealogical data I had and memories are not reliable."


She went on to describe the land records, wills, church records, marriage records, birth records, death records, et al that she once had. Some family history information was gleaned from her letter to confirm my research. She had spent more than twenty years researching our family history.

But - "... I destroyed much of the genealogical data I had . . ."


I can't even begin to imagine what would trigger someone to destroy all of that research. I won't even try.

For Open Discussion Weekend, please comment below:

• Have you experienced this within your family?
• What do you think could cause someone to destroy their research?
• Would YOU ever destroy your research?

Open Discussion Weekend - What Drives Your Genealogy Passion?

It's no secret that we genealogists are passionate, obsessive, driven, enthusiastic, dedicated .... I could go on.

This weekend's question is: What drives that passion or obsession for you? Is it the whole idea of finding out who you are through the lives of your ancestors? Do you have one or two ancestors who really intrigue you?

How did you get started doing family history research and what was the trigger that got you hooked? At this point in your life, can you imagine ever stopping your quest for family history information?

What aspect of your family history research do you enjoy the most? For me, it's no question that I love researching old newspapers and walking in the quiet solitude of cemeteries.

Please share your Comments below.

Open Discussion Weekend: Does Family History Research Make You Sad?

There seemed to be a common thread among the Twitter comments regarding last night's episode of Who Do You Think You Are featuring Gwyneth Paltrow. Many of the tweets expressed sadness over the deaths of the young children and the adversity in the lives of her family members.

As genealogists, we spend the majority of our time researching the lives of people who have long since passed. Whenever I add a new branch to the family tree, I get a sudden rush as I discover the new names, the spouses, their children, their children's spouses, their grandchildren and so on.

During my initial online research on these new branches, I am jumping between resources on Ancestry, FamilySearch, NewspaperArchive, GenealogyBank, Google News Archive - putting together a basic picture of their lives. And quite often, within a few minutes to an hour, I have discovered this new family, lived through their marriage, their children and grandchildren and then I discover an obituary or death record. Of course, I knew that information would be waiting there, but I always feel a little sad when I find it.

With my direct line ancestors, I usually try to construct a more in-depth timeline of the events of their lives. As with Gwyneth's discovery, I also found a rather sad chain of events. In the timeline of my grandmother, Sina Bellinger Kelly, I learn that she was pregnant with her second child when her first child died. Three months after the loss of her first baby, her mother died. A month after her mother died, her next child was born. The suicide of her brother and the death of her father were just four months apart.

These discoveries often take me from the euphoria of discovering a new family line to tremendous empathy and sadness once I see the timeline of events in their lives.

My question for this week's Open Discussion Weekend: do you ever find yourself getting sad or depressed as you discover information about the families and ancestors you research? Do you take this all in stride and accept death as a natural progression of the life cycle? Do you ever find the empathy for people overwhelming? If so, how do you deal with the feelings? Please share your experiences and comment below.

Open Discussion Weekend - will brick walls become a thing of the past?

Last month, Archives.com released this information regarding trends in online family history. There's not a lot of surprises in the trends, but it seems like some of the numbers presented are staggering.

Source: graphic created for public use by Archives.com

The online sites showing the greatest growth from December 2009 to December 2010 are Ancestry.com, Archives.com, My Heritage.com and FindAGrave.com. FamilySearch.org and Archives.gov appear to be remaining steady. Why the surge in Ancestry.com and Archives.com? Are the TV ads working? How about the hour-long infomercial Who Do You Think You Are? on Friday evenings? I say that tongue-in-cheek, but Ancestry does a nice job of product placement in the TV series, in addition to being one of the paid sponsors. Can a television show spike online usage? Apparently so.

But how does one explain the 182 per cent growth at Archives.com? It's a subscription based site as well. The annual fee is considerably less than Ancestry.com. Perhaps that is what makes it attractive to some users.

The demographics of Archives.com users wasn't surprising either - mostly female, and an older demographic than the typical internet user.

What I found more interesting was the increase in select Google search terms between August 2007 and December 2009. There is a definite burst between December 2008 and July 2009. What triggered the increase?

But the really exciting numbers are at the bottom of the chart - the number of digital images that are becoming available.

• Number of books scanned for Google Books: 15 million
• Obituary pages on Legacy.com: 7 million
• Records from the 1940 Census to be released in 2012 from the National Archives: 130 million
• Records indexed by FamilySearch.org in 2010 alone: 160 million

These numbers are staggering! At this growth rate, in 10 years will we be looking back and saying, "Oh yeah, remember back when everyone used to have brick walls? Genealogy used to be so difficult."

Even with all of these millions of documents, it certainly takes some skill to know how to dig into the deep web to find exactly what you're looking for. Is the day coming that all of our genealogy research will be done online?

Please offer your opinions in the Comments section below

Open Discussion Weekend: Ancestor Overload - Good or Bad?

This has been a rather amazing week for me in genealogy. It's been such an amazing week that I'm peddling as fast as I can to get caught up on my blogging.

Why so amazing? The ancestors are coming at me from all directions!

When I first started blogging, my purpose was to post some queries in hopes of finding descendants of affiliated and related families. 15 months later, a second cousin, twice removed, responded to my very first blog post, indicating she was descended from the woman whose family I was trying to trace.

Last weekend, the California line of a related family was all together scanning and uploading photographs and documents to their tree on Ancestry.com - I could barely keep up with everything they were posting. After this line of the family being elusive for so long, it's like the gold rush of family history!

A few days ago, another "cousin" sent me another batch of zipped folders with photographs of the various Petersen families. And they did not have small families! I have to have my charts handy to keep track of all of them. This took me back to the Danish Demographic Database once again. In a short time, I took my line back one more generation for certain, and possibly one more beyond that. These census records are beyond compare if you have ancestors from Denmark.

Then, last evening, the DNA results from 23andMe showed up, which may lead to potentially hundreds of more kin out there!

Open Discussion

Have you ever had a week like this? How did you handle the overload of incoming information? Did you jump around from ancestor to ancestor, euphoric about everything coming your way? Or did you methodically develop a plan for processing all of the new information and documents? How did you set your priorities for evaluating new information?

Genealogists often talk about our frustration with brick walls. What about frustration over Ancestor Overload? This is a good thing, right?

Please post your thoughts and experiences in the Comments section below. I look forward to reading what you have to say.

Open Discussion: What Kind of Paper Trail Are YOU Leaving Behind?

Last week, I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the comments that readers posted about What To Do With Skeletons in the Closet. So I thought it would be fun to open this blog up for Open Discussions from time to time.

Today's Open Discussion Weekend is about the kind of paper (or digital) trail YOU are leaving behind for your descendants. Several memes have found their way to me this week, so it would appear the greater Universe is trying to tell me something.

Last weekend, I began tackling the paper monster surrounding my desk and I filled four trash bags with shredded paper. It's a well known fact that I don't do paper! More accurately, I don't manage paper in the way that I would like to. I might need that for something! Digital filing? Much better at that. Could you email that to me as a pdf?

Whenever I make a purchase I always keep a receipt. I think that goes back to my childhood when I bought 16 Magazine, Datebook and Tiger Beat the day they hit the newsstands. I went from drugstore to drugstore with my magazines and always wanted them in a paper bag, with the receipt, so that the other drugstore wouldn't accuse me of shoplifting. I wanted proof I'd purchased my magazines.

Now at the end of the week, I have to unload all of those receipts for groceries, lunches, gas, etc. out of my wallet. Right through the shredder. As I picked up some "window food" at a drive-through the other night, I immediately put the receipt into the litter bag. That was when this bolt of lightning struck me and I thought about how I treasure and preserve every little piece of paper remnant left behind by my ancestors.

From my ancestors, I have receipts, notes that bills have been paid, ration coupons, school report cards, newspaper clippings that have no immediate connection to anything or anyone! It's a rather eclectic assortment of paper ephemera. No doubt, you have such a paper archive on your ancestors as well.

Last year it was announced that the Library of Congress acquired the entire Twitter archive.

This all made me wonder what kind of paper (or digital) trail are we leaving behind for our descendants? Are we setting aside the more important paper documents that would be wise to pass down? Or are some of us accumulating such a massive paper trail that, rather than sort through it, our descendants will begin shredding everything without looking through it?

In 100 years will a descendant be treasuring a receipt for a Whopper Junior and fries, while saying in astonishment, "You won't believe the horrible kind of food my great-great grandfather ate back then. It's no wonder his death certificate said he died of heart disease!"

For discussion:

• What is your relationship with paper?
• Are you saving or sorting not only for your immediate needs (taxes, insurance, wills) or with future generations in mind?
• If all of the paper in your home right now were placed in a time capsule and opened 100 years from now, what kind of portrait would it paint of your life?
• Are you treating your digital footprint any differently from your paper footprint?

I encourage your comments and discussion on this topic!

What To Do With Skeletons in the Closet

Last evening's broadcast of the NBC hit genealogy show, Who Do You Think You Are, featured Kim Cattrall's search for her grandfather who had abandoned his family. He ran off and left three young daughters who grew up without ever knowing their father.

He then married another woman (without having gotten a divorce!) and began a new family with her.

Upon learning this information, and that she had living relatives, Cattrall chose not to follow-up and meet her grandfather's other family. Most of the people who were discussing the program on Twitter (#wdytya) last evening were in agreement that it was a very emotional episode.

What do you do with YOUR skeletons?


This brings me around to a question I would like to pose to readers of this blog.

What do YOU do with the skeletons in YOUR closet? Most of us have them. Mine include illegitimate children, kidnapping (if it's your own child, is it really kidnapping?), several suicides, and probably the worst of all, a third great-grandfather who killed his daughter and then committed suicide in 1851.

Last night's discussions on Twitter as well as on Geneablogger Radio brought out a lot of firmly held beliefs on what to do with this type of information when it is discovered in your family history research.

Points to consider:

• Do you lay it on the line, share with family and publish your findings?
• Do you keep it close to the vest and not share it?
• Do you attempt to rewrite history? The genealogist who published a family history that included the ancestor who murdered his daughter changed the entire context of that story, making him out to be a hero who tried to save his daughter's life. Newspaper reports from the time were quite different.
• Is there a "statute of limitations" on privacy? For example, if an incident occurred four or five generations back, do you treat the information differently?

When I began gathering information from living family members, a relative asked that I not include her first husband in her genealogy. I was rather astounded by the request, because how would I explain where her three children came from?

I definitely understand and respect privacy issues regarding living individuals; that isn't the point of this discussion.

But I am very interested in how other genealogists deal with the skeletons in your closet. This is an open discussion, so please leave your comments below.