Quick moral maze question re others' letters

[sammyc]

Not an original dilemma, but what's your opinions on family letters - in this instance letters written to my parents by my mother's cousin. Now in my possession, obviously they weren't intended to be read by me, but for the same reason would you pass them on to his, the cousin's, family? Always an odd thing with letters in that the older they are people seem more inclined to think keeping them is alright.. historical/family archives etc - but more recent, seem more personal. Obviously if everyone destroyed letters like these ones I have, none would survive to become archival. If it's fair to assume the chap wouldn't necessarily want his family reading them - maybe object mildly, maybe strongly - who knows - then what to do with 'em?

[TeePee]

From easiest to hardest:

Is the intended recipient alive? Pass them on. MYOB.
Are all parties involved deceased? This becomes a question of family archive. You have to judge the dynamic of your family. The fact that you are asking suggests that there is some turmoil, and without sharing it's impossible to say what might be the better choice.
Are the recipients deceased, but the sender alive? This increases the potential turmoil. In this case, you might seriously consider reading first, and passing them along based on the contents.

[Saracen999]

Not an original dilemma, but what's your opinions on family letters - in this instance letters written to my parents by my mother's cousin. Now in my possession, obviously they weren't intended to be read by me, but for the same reason would you pass them on to his, the cousin's, family? Always an odd thing with letters in that the older they are people seem more inclined to think keeping them is alright.. historical/family archives etc - but more recent, seem more personal. Obviously if everyone destroyed letters like these ones I have, none would survive to become archival. If it's fair to assume the chap wouldn't necessarily want his family reading them - maybe object mildly, maybe strongly - who knows - then what to do with 'em?

As TeePee said, it kinda depends on the exact circumstances. For the sake of simplicity, I will try to keep it generic and not related to your specific issue, and also assume the intended recipient(s) are either deceased, or sufficiently badly affected by a degenerative illness as to be functionally the same thing, in terms of discussing letters.

As an aside, if you know these exist, and that you might end up in possession of them, ask while you can. I had a similar situation but not re: letters. It was WRT to the occupation of a deceased family member, which could still have repercussions for current family members. We knew this might be an issue, so tackled it while the people we needed to talk to were still here to provide insight.

But that aside, if I suddenly came into unexpected possession of such documents (or issues) I think I would adopt the attitude of having to be some kind of arbiter of what to do with them. That would require reading them, and unless I was convinced they were innocuous, do so in secret, and keep quiet about what I found.

My driving guide would be whether knowing of their existence, or contents, would hurt anyone living. If the sender, intended recipients, and anyone referred to in the contents, were still alive and likely to be upset or offended by the contents, I would keep my knowledge of them to myself until/unless that situation was no longer true.

If they were not likely to upset/offend anyone still living, even indirectly, then by all means add them to the family archive publicly (by which, I mean within the family).

For context, I am something of a low-level genealogy fan, and have done a fair bit of snooping and sticking my nose into family secrets. It is sometimes fascinating how hard documentary evidence someimes contradicts accepted family 'knowledge' of how things happened, and when, and to and with whom.

After the fact, and when those involved are gone, it can be very difficult or outright impossible to sort out what actually happened, which isn't necessarily what that accepted family knowledge thinks did, and sometimes (and I have hard evidence of this) what official records think did either.

It can also come as a shock when we find out that older, staider, buttoned-up members of the family were young once too, and got up to all the shennanigans that we thought we invented as teenagers ourselves. In fact, I found out I was a rank amateur compared to .... well, certain members of previous generations. I was impressed .... once the shock wore off.

So .... from a genealogy perspective, I would read and assess such documents and, provided they don't hurt anybody, release them. If they did, they'd go into my little archive, with an explanatory note for future generations explaining why I kept quiet.

Genealogy isn't worth offending, upsetting or embarrassing the living, but it is worth preserving to help future generations understand what really happened.

Much more than that, I feel I couldn't make a judgement call without knowing what I was making a judgement call about - which still means I'd have to read them to do so.

[sammyc]

Interesting! Sorry I hadn't explicitly stated that yes, sender & recipients both long gone. This is why I have the letters, as a natural consequence of having parents who kept everything. (And what to do with letters etc after they (my parents) had gone is not a conversation we'd ever have had. We're all of the 'I'm not going anywhere what is there to discuss la la' school of mentality )

So, therefore, it's a simple do I pass them on to the cousin's children. There is no turmoil or family drama to reckon with, I imagine they're fairly mundane letters, but even everyday stuff (say, discussing the children in the way fellow parents might well do - who's causing them a headache, whether they don't privately think much to their life choices) could be stuff the children may or may not want to know in hindsight.

When I say interesting, I mean that you both apparently take arbiter to mean me reading them, or you don't rule it out. This is only one generation back and I do feel MYOB is more the way I lean (there are quite a lot of things in the publishing of past diaries and letters line that I'm not a fan of, interesting/historic or not).

If positions were reversed, would I want my 2nd cousin shredding letters from my parents to their father? Probably. Without asking me first? Not sure. If I pass them on, and they read them, does that sit ok with me? Dunno.

[Saracen999]

Well, I don't think there's 'one size fits all' answer. I mean, if it was obvious or clear, you wouldn't be asking the question.

So .... how about asking the cousins what they want done with the letters?

Hey Cuz(s) ... I found these letters from x to y in their effects. Do you want them? What's in them? Dunno, haven't read them.

It's possible you'll even get multiple different answers. You might end up with one that says 'No, let the past stay in the past', and another that, like me, is interested in family history and hopes for little gems of info.

And indeed, little gems don't have to be salacious family secrets. In one case I'm aware of, some new reltives were tracked down by discovering that an ancestor several generations back did a brief spell in a particular occupatin and in a particular area the family were unaware of a link with, but that that brief spell happened to coincide with a census being taken, and knowing of the location and occupation opened up further lines of inquiry, which led to relatives. It can be something as inocuous as that.

[sammyc]

Well, I don't think there's 'one size fits all' answer. I mean, if it was obvious or clear, you wouldn't be asking the question.

So .... how about asking the cousins what they want done with the letters? [..]

I guess because it brings me back to - is my mother's cousin, the sender, 'up there' (or wherever) going 'Nooooo, don't'. And because we can't know, I have to guess and then either ask - or shred, off my own bat. Neither can be undone of course.

[spacein_vader]

. We're all of the 'I'm not going anywhere what is there to discuss la la' school of mentality )

Slightly off topic but is seriously reconsider this stance if I were you. Events over the past 8 months have led me to believe that the more you know about your loved ones wishes when they die (and vice versa,) the better. Keeping quiet means that somebody is going to have to deal with a lot of uncertainty and anguish, you're just playing Russian roulette to decide which of you it is.

[sammyc]

Slightly off topic but is seriously reconsider this stance if I were you. Events over the past 8 months have led me to believe that the more you know about your loved ones wishes when they die (and vice versa,) the better. Keeping quiet means that somebody is going to have to deal with a lot of uncertainty and anguish, you're just playing Russian roulette to decide which of you it is.

I do fully take all this on board but I have the (arguable) luxury of being at the end of our family line and no-one to worry about but myself. Jolly old denial also works well for me on an existential level & all that - the bit that would bother me were I to dwell on it is what will happen to my stuff, as I've mentioned here before, I'd rather disappear taking all my worldlies with me. This is partly because, well, selfishly, these are my things, and I don't want anyone else having (say) my books. The personal stuff is more difficult again because to safely stop it falling into enemy hands I'd have to dispose of it here & now, & then I'm cutting off my nose etc. I have toyed with the Michael Landy approach but would have years of retentive genetics to fight against there. (In reality the upshot will probably be all my stuff in a skip & me after it, & try not to worry about that now.)

[Saracen999]

I guess because it brings me back to - is my mother's cousin, the sender, 'up there' (or wherever) going 'Nooooo, don't'. And because we can't know, I have to guess and then either ask - or shred, off my own bat. Neither can be undone of course.

You certainly can't unshred them. Well, technically, you can I suppose but with a halfway decent crosscut shredder, it sure ain't gonna be fun. Or quick.

But .... if you file them quietly away, you can always shred them later.

Or .... scan and file PDFs while shredding the paper versions. Keep the PDFs in an encrypted drive or folder to which only you have the key. You could even set up a scheduled auto-delete for a year or five, but if anything unexpected happens to you, the PDFs are effectively unrecoverable. Don't want them unrecoverable? Leave someone you trust the decryption key and their location. It's a sort-of halfway house.

[Iota]

If I pass them on, and they read them, does that sit ok with me? Dunno.

Seal, leave in will to whomever you think would like to receive them. That way you don't have to deal with any potential problems arising from passing them on. That's the way I'd personally deal with them, pass the buck.

[sammyc]

Or .... scan and file PDFs while shredding the paper versions. Keep the PDFs in an encrypted drive or folder to which only you have the key. You could even set up a scheduled auto-delete for a year or five, but if anything unexpected happens to you, the PDFs are effectively unrecoverable. Don't want them unrecoverable? Leave someone you trust the decryption key and their location. It's a sort-of halfway house.

Well it's an idea, but a) I do feel these would be of interest and only of interest to the generation in question, making certain assumptions about their contents*, and if they happen to be more interesting than that, I certainly wouldn't want to skip this generation but effectively pass them downwards, over their heads, if you follow. This being a generation that is older than me, they wouldn't get them when I go, either. So I'm leaning towards not pass them on, at the moment - disposing of them myself is the sticking point though.

*assumptions based on knowing my parents, and the cousin, and that their correspondence would be part house moves, part health matters, part compare your kids & what they're doing etc. This last, as per my post 4, is the bit I feel may have potential cause for upset.

Seal, leave in will to whomever you think would like to receive them. That way you don't have to deal with any potential problems arising from passing them on. That's the way I'd personally deal with them, pass the buck.

Nice thought but unfortunately anything I'm not ok with now, I can't rubber stamp for when it's out of my hands. All my moral stances, not to mention grievances and all the rest, are coming with me

[Saracen999]

....

I certainly wouldn't want to skip this generation but effectively pass them downwards, over their heads, if you follow. This being a generation that is older than me, they wouldn't get them when I go, either. So I'm leaning towards not pass them on, at the moment - disposing of them myself is the sticking point though.

....

Oh, I follow. One of the complications is that generations also sometimes (or, usually) see things differently, which makes your decision even harder.

Really, I'm throwing out ideas as a kind of Devil's Advocate. How you react in your answers is, I hope, telling you more than it tells me. I have no idea what you should do. Merely by answering, it requires a bit of clarification in how you see the issue. And sure, I might have come up with something whereby you slapped your forehead and went "Of course, that's it!!" but realistically, it wasn't likely. But if you're leaning towards one option or t'other, you're getting there.

For what it's worth, my personal view is :-

a) there probably is no "right" or "wrong" answer, and
b) I'm glad it's your call, not mine, mainly because of a).

[TeePee]

Honestly, I think I'd be inclined to just pass them along unread. If there's any objectionable content, it's not your responsibility, and the family might appreciate even that.

[sammyc]

Belated ta both, for the interesting takes, I haven't had time to make the final 'come down on one side or the other' decision but as it's not (thankfully) an agonizing decision to make, just a not particularly clear cut one - no right or wrong answer is pretty much it probably, that you can know to be right or wrong, anyway - but I will have a final mull and get around to it.