Genealogy & General Subjects Blog



Thursday, October 25, 2007

Family History Woes

The Genealogue recently pointed me to this interesting story. Apparently, a family historian named Delia published to her blog a quotation from her grandmother's diary and is now being sued by other family members for copyright infringements and defamation.

The story raises interesting questions, particularly for those of us who have published letters and documents to the web or in other formats. However, I think that there is still hope for us.

To begin with, you can almost always publish a portion of a work under the "fair use" clause to the copyright law. Otherwise, critics, teachers and others would never be able to use quotations from works they cite. The exact amount that can be used has never been precisely defined, but based on the fact that Delia apparently only used a paragraph, she's probably okay.

I haven't just published a portion of these works, however. In general, I've published the entirety of the letters, diaries and so forth. Which brings me to my next thought, one that applies to what I've published, but not to what Delia published.

In general, genealogists are discouraged from publishing any information about the living, particularly online. For privacy reasons, it seems apparent why birth dates, maiden names, etc. shouldn't be easy to find online.

However, it seems to me that we should also be extremely careful about what we publish that involves the living: anything written by someone living obviously and anything written ABOUT someone living. This is particularly true if what was written might be controversial. What Delia published was a quotation from her grandmother that applied to a living individual, and which was not terribly favorable to that individual. You can see how that would rankle (whether or not there is a legal case).

In general, I have made it my practice to leave out anything on my site that was written by someone living or that is about someone living. Sometimes this has been hard. Still, the closest I have gotten to knowingly publishing about the living is publishing The Letter from Mother which includes some not-very-flattering portraits of "recently" departed family members (recently in this case meaning that some people in my family still remember them).

In terms of other copyright laws, I hope that I haven't broken them. I always volunteer to take down information if the copyright holder asks (no one ever has). Just contact me!

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Stirpiculture

The Oneida Community was a communal living experiment (one of many such experiments around the country) begun in Putney, VT and later moved to Oneida NY (where the mansion still stands). The group was founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1841. Like the Shakers with whom they share some similarities, there were religious teachings behind many of the practices adopted by members.

One of the practices that caused a great stir at the time was "complex marriage" (aaah, Vermont, so many marriage controversies!). Although begun as early as 1846, only leaders of the community initially practiced it. Essentially, complex marriage was group marriage, where men and women did not have to practice monogamy with one another and were, in fact, discouraged from forming monogamous, exclusive relationships. Prior to cohabitation, both parties also had to agree through a third party. This practice was ended in 1879, and monogamous unions were again the norm.

Several of John Noyes religious teachings were related to child-bearing. John Noyes is quoted as saying in 1849:

"We are not opposed to procreation. But we are opposed to involuntary procreation. We are opposed to excessive, and, of course, oppressive procreation, which is almost universal."
By 1868, Noyes had already begun the practice of "male continence" in which men refrained from ejaculation during sex in order to prevent unintended pregnancies. Male teenagers were paired for sex with women in menopause until they learned to do this. As a form of birth control, it laid the foundation for other religious tenets.

In 1868, Noyes pioneered some of the earliest experiments in eugenics through a practice he called "stirpiculture". Essentially, this was a way to precisely control how many children were born and which individuals would become parents. The "central members" of the community initially controlled who was allowed to have children and with what partners. In 1875, a 12 member committee made up of equal numbers of men and women took over the responsibility of pairing child-bearing couples.

In 1869, 38 men and 53 women in the Oneida Community made the following resolutions to John Noyes in support of stirpiculture:

By the men:
The undersigned desire you may feel that we most heartily sympathize with your purposes in regard to scientific propagation, and offer ourselves in forming any combinations that may seem to you desirable. We claim no rights. We ask no privileges. We desire to be servants of the truth. With a prayer that the grace of God will help us in this resolution, we are your true soldiers.

By the women:
1. That we do not belong to ourselves in any respect, but that we do belong first to God and second to Mr. Noyes as God's true representative.
2. That we have no rights or personal feelings in regard to child-bearing which shall in the least degree oppose or embarrass him in his choice of scientific combinations.
3. That we will put aside all envy, childishness, and self-seeking, and rejoice with those who are chosen candidates; that we will, if necessary, become martyrs to science, and cheerfully resign all desire to become mothers, if for any reason Mr. Noyes deems us unfit material for propogation. Above all, we offer ourselves "living sacrifices" to God and true Communion.

The practice of stirpiculture lasted for 11 years (1868-1879) with about 100 participants. 81 of these became parents to 58 children. There were 4 still births. Promoters of stirpiculture proclaimed that the benefits included longer life spans, lower rates of disability, and general health and hardiness for the children as well as the cohesion of the Oneida Community. 18 of the adult children intermarried with other children of the Oneida Community.

Children in the Oneida Community, both those born under stirpiculture and those conceived through traditional practices, were cared for by their mothers until they learned to walk. At this time, they would be placed in the "Children's House" for the day. They were allowed to return to their mothers at night until they entered the "play stage" at which point they would live in the Children's House full-time until adolescence. Parents were allowed to visit, but if community leaders felt that an unhealthy attachment was developing, these visits could be disallowed. 193 children lived in this arrangement during the 40 years of the community's existence.

If the materials of the proponents can be believed, the quality of care received in the Children's House was actually quite good: "Much attention was given to diet, clothing, sanitation, and profitable activity" [Noyes, 379]. Of course, the community's isolation helped prevent many deaths from disease through effective quarantine. Still, only 5 deaths occurred in the Children's House over its 40 year history.

But my goodness, the ethical questions this raises! As a short list:
  • Who has the right to decide which people are "fit" to reproduce and what "qualities" make them fit?
  • Women and men were ostensibly equal in the Oneida Community, receiving equal shares in the incomes, etc. Do the practices of complex marriage and stirpiculture seem equal for both men and women?
  • How much should we control a child's genetics through scientific processes? How much of a child's environment should be controlled?
  • How is this different from Hitler's campaign to reignite the Aryan race? How is it different from modern genetic testing of fetuses, sperm banking, etc?
  • Is complex marriage really marriage?
  • How much personal liberty and freedom should be accorded members of society?
  • When experiments such as this one are not ethically reproducible, how can/should we interpret results?
And the list goes on and on. It is a fascinating concept, if only because I can't imagine why people went along with the idea. Now this would probably be called a cult, and certainly the society did fall apart after John Noyes' death, so it owes something to his charisma. There must be descendants of these children out there somewhere. It would be interesting to know how they feel about their ancestors having engaged in "scientific" mating.

(I used as my primary source: The Oneida Community Experiment in Stirpiculture by Hilda Herrick Noyes and George Wallingford Noyes pp 374-86 in Eugenics, Genetics, & the Family: Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921. Volume I. Garland Publishing, New York: 1985.

More information can be found at Syracuse University which holds the Oneida Community archives and in various online sources:
this one
that one
another one
and this Google book)

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Monday, October 8, 2007

But what about the inheritance?

Slate.com ran an interesting blurb today in their Human Nature column about a British woman who is receiving donated sperm from her father-in-law. It would mean that the baby would be a biological half-sibling to its "father", raising a number of questions. The health risks with older sperm are increased, but many people are also seriously concerned about the ethics of the case (it was reviewed by an ethics committee).

The father has no brother, which would be the usual family route. The article about this in the Guardian states:
It is not uncommon for families to use a sperm donor from within their family - often a brother - so that the child will have genetic ties with his or her "father", but this is thought to be the first case of a grandfather acting as a sperm donor. The family have not yet decided whether they will tell the child who his or her genetic father is, although the clinic is encouraging them to be open about that. "That's their personal decision," said Dr Ahuja.
Still, the questions about anonymous and known sperm donors that I've raised in other posts still apply. Also, I can't help wondering about the inheritance patterns from granddad to pop to kid... but presumably some lawyers are working on this problem!

What's interesting about this is that the DNA for genealogists will still match up in the future and so really no one will ever have to know (or accuse this woman of adultery!). I wonder how often this kind of thing happened in the past without the sterile medical procedures?

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Sunday, April 29, 2007

Sweet & Low

I'm reading Sweet & Low by Rich Cohen (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2006) right now. It's interesting to read as a family history buff. For all intents and purposes, that's what the book is. It takes a family story and family characters and blends that information with history and context. It does this extremely well.

Although most of the people that Cohen is writing about are still alive, he is distanced from many of them, both emotionally and physically (he grew up in IL, while they lived in NYC). In this way, he is your typical family historian.

Cohen uses the tools of all family historians: wills, newspapers and court documents, but also has the luxury of interviews with living family members. The story he creates is an excellent read. In an article for Slate.com, Cohen writes that he "would write as if everyone had died long ago." In fact, this is sometimes how it feels.

As the son of the daughter who was disinherited from the family fortune, however, he is far from neutral. So although he uses primary sources and interviews, there is a decided slant to his writing that leaves you wondering what the other side might be. At times, he ascribes motives to his family characters or describes them from childhood memories that leave you squirming; who can tell what others are really thinking or meaning from such limited information? Unfortunately, I haven't yet turned up any rebuttals or corrections from other family members (so maybe it's all true).

All in all, though, I would recommend the book as an interesting read, particularly for those of us writing family history stories. If nothing else, it is a good reminder that even primary sources and people may sometimes skew our glimpses into the past.

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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Salon Advice Column/Marshall Family

So it has been a long time since this Salon advice column ran (in Sept 2006), and I'm still irked by it. The basic premise is that a daughter is irritated by how obsessed her parents have become by genealogy. The reply is what bugs me, since it essentially says that genealogists only are interested in finding out which famous people they are related to. You can read the replies; lots of genealogists wrote in to disagree, and say they do it for a whole host of other reasons. It looks like the most common reason is to find out more about history and "where I came from". You can read about my reasons for doing genealogy here.

Also, I haven't been writing very much this week, because, ironically, I have been doing research on someone who I might not be related to, but who is famous (ish). The Marshall family of western Pennsylvania has frustrated me for a long time, in part because I don't have easy access to primary records, and in part because there aren't very many primary records that were created. I am searching for more information on James Marshall (b. about 1822 in PA) who was married to Mary Lauderback (b. abt 1827 in PA). Their children were:

1. George Albert Marshall, b. 1845, probably in Brownsville; m. Viola Carter in 1865; d. 1933 in OK?
2. Erastus S. Marshall, b. 10 Aug 1847 in Elizabeth, Allegheny Co, PA; private, Co. E, 155th Pa. Inf. Zouaves; m. Sarah Melchi in 1867; d. 10 Jun 1919 in California, Washington, PA
3. Eperitus Marshall, b. 1849; m. Martha ____; d. 1908; carpenter (spellings of his first name vary widely)
4. Jemima Marshall, b. abt. 1856

In 1850, the family lived in Elizabeth, Allegheny County. In 1860, they lived in California, Washington County.

As an adult, Erastus lived in California. Eperitus also lived there for a time. George lived in McKeesport, before heading west.

The problem I am having is that James Marshall is WAY too common a name, even in sparsely settled western PA, especially since the family moved around so much.

In the course of looking for more information about MY James Marshall, I kept running across information about a James Marshel, b. 1753. I collected it, on the assumption that if I did manage to make a link from my James Marshall to a possible grandfather, James Marshel, I would be really irritated with myself for having not paid attention to all the other references. But then, I got interested in the James Marshel who might not be mine. He's an interesting character for sure. Plus, I learned a whole bunch about western PA history that I didn't know, but that is helpful for doing additional research.

This week, I decided it needed to be put into narrative form, because I was losing track of the notes and quotations and so forth that I had compiled. You can read a draft of what I've been working on here.

Here's a dilemma though. Do I want to be related to him? On the one hand, it would be nice to be related to someone whose letters and so forth I could actually read and learn more about. On the other hand, he doesn't seem to have been a very nice character. Everyone will have someone not so nice in their tree (probably many of them). You can't always find out much about them... although they tend to leave more of a trail than the nice ancestors, what with court documents and all. But it's sort of disturbing to find such people in your family tree.

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Saturday, April 7, 2007

Ethics & Letters

A large part of my family history site has recently become the Family Documents & Stories section. In fact, these two areas are among the most frequently visited of the site.

I have to wonder however about the ethical dilemmas posed by publishing some of these documents even after the death of everyone involved. For example, in several of the letters to Rose Plaisted, her suitors specifically requested her to "Burn when read". Well, clearly, she didn't. And, in fact, those letters were passed from her daughters to her granddaughter to my mother... three generations who didn't destroy them. So whose ethical dilemma is that? Of course, prior to me, the letters were in a box, not published for all to see. Still, how could I resist? They're hysterical!

Of possibly more concern is the more recent skeletons in the closet... the people who are remembered by those who are still living. For example, I quote my great-aunt, Eva Scott, in The Letter from "Mother". She clearly didn't mean for anyone to see that letter, especially not anyone in her family. How was she to know that her suitor was saving his correspondence and would donate it to Cornell upon his death? (The irony being that she is one of Rose's daughters and didn't destroy that correspondence).

I guess the lesson here is that sometimes our letters come back to haunt us. I recently heard from a friend of mine from high school. She still has packets of letters that I wrote to her. I can only imagine what I might have said.

What do you think? Where are the ethical boundaries?

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