Privacy and ethic in Genealogical Research is an enormous subject but a very important one. The information collected although in the public domain, affects the client (you) for whom it was collected; by me (who collected it) as well as the source from which it was collected (website, archives, library, author of book, controller of church registers etc.). So, all three entities involved in this collecting of data – the collection, the collector, the client have a role to play in ensuring standards of privacy, respect and confidentiality are maintained.
Ancestry.com website has an excellent wiki page dealing with the sharing of genealogical data which I have summarised below and which I will follow. I presume that you as the client will also follow these recommendations. To read the original click here
Standard for Sharing
Confidentiality
In client work, I shall respect the confidential nature of the agreement I have with you about sharing. While as author of the report I have copyright to its form of expression, you too have certain rights for the use of that report I was paid to research and assemble. Therefore, these rights are spelt out in a contract which will ensure the current and future rights in fairness to both parties (you and me). You may choose to make the report available to other people, but I will not assume the same option without your permission. For example, I might want to make a point in lecturing by using your report as a case study, or write an article incorporating some of your family history for a local Family History Society. Before doing this, I shall obtain a letter from you giving me permission and I will also acknowledge that permission given.
Sensitivity
In family research sensitivity to others’ attitudes and feelings is absolutely essential. The collecting of information normally includes facts and stories from and about living people as well as those long gone. The majority of family history clients probably have at least one living parent or relative to help make the first connections to the ancestral trail. Some of those facts and stories may involve an old family scandal or secret. It may be found that there is a family secret but no one will talk about it. That might be my first big challenge — to uncover it, so that I can make progress into the past. I shall be very aware that older family members may not share the modern general acceptance of common-law and same-sex unions, unwed mothers and racial or religious differences. My family history report will attempt not to write it from our 21st century point of view. I shall to takes into account prevailing social values of the times.
While it might seem exciting to discover something shady or dramatic in our family tree, we may have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews who are not so inclined! Some of them may have lived with a secret they don’t want made public. Some of them may have been unaware of a sad secret all their lives and could be quite distressed if the salacious details are announced at a family gathering. This ethical understanding is both yours and mine.
Illegitimacy and bigamy were not uncommon during the lifetimes of our ancestors and such incidents may be too close to home for revealing within the family, let alone to the general public. Adoption is an obviously sensitive issue. The stigma of being the perpetrator or victim of a criminal offence can linger for decades and generations. Bankruptcy, betrayal, orphans, runaways, adultery, divorce, alcoholics, death by misadventure, estrangements … any kind of human misery or skeleton in the cupboard may well appear in a family I am researching.
In cases like this, a professional will be compassionate and discreet. How much I incorporate into a report or a family history is a judgment call from my personal knowledge of the expected recipient(s). I might believe that honesty is the only policy in the face of undeniable evidence, but discretion has a role. Generally speaking, recipients who have some experience with family history will be more open to such news than the relative or client who only wants to hear good things.
With family, it’s possible to keep the details private for a future day when all are happy to have it revealed. My current (public) report, text or footnote might be an edited version.
With you, the client, I will try to prepare you first for bad or sad news. When I send you the report with the details, I will refrain from editorial comments or hypotheses on the situation until you, the client, draws your own conclusions and makes a decision whether to continue or not.
Privacy
Another side of the same coin, so to speak, is a living individual’s right to privacy. There are no effective controls on submissions or access to the Internet and electronic communications in spite of recurring changes to copyright and other laws. Identity theft and financial fraud are a growing threat. No professional genealogist or family historian will ever publish vital information about living people (dates and places of birth and marriage, addresses and telephone numbers, email addresses, etc) which a stranger could manipulate for criminal purposes.
If you are preparing a full genealogy or family history for publication as a book, it’s a good idea to consult with some family members to decide how to treat living people and the best way to protect their privacy. Often, simply a name alone or a name with year of birth may suffice.
Racial Classifications etc.
Because of the history of South Africa, the race of a member of our family does play a part in our family history. Certain terms have been used in the past as a descriptor of a person’s race but are now viewed as being offensive. Where these offences occur in the original documentation, they might be used in my report but I shall qualify them by inverted comma or italics to show that they were in the original and do not express my current understanding of people of that race classification. UNESCO has brought out a statement on race which speaks of the similarity between races and diversity within a race group. I have summarised this and the American Anthropological Association’s statement below.
Both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g. DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within “racial” groups than between them. In neighbouring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species.
Historical research has shown that the idea of “race” has always carried more meanings than mere physical differences; indeed, physical variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones that humans put on them.
“Race” evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behaviour. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behaviour of people homogenized into “racial” categories. The myths fused behaviour and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behaviour, implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behaviour. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk-beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors.
In the 21st century, we now understand that human cultural behaviour is learned, conditioned into infants beginning at birth, and always subject to modification. No human is born with a built-in culture or language. Our temperaments, dispositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic propensities, are developed within sets of meanings and values that we call “culture.” Studies of infant and early childhood learning and behaviour attest to the reality of our cultures in forming who we are.
How people have been accepted and treated within the context of a given society or culture has a direct impact on how they perform in that society. The “racial” worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in South Africa has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Settlers, former Slave descendants and peoples of African descent. Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities between so-called “racial” groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances.
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