[ExI] yet another ethical dilemma

[Brent Allsop]

Very interesting.

My Great Great Great Grandfather Thomas Hill Allsop, married my Great Great
Great Grandmother, after converting to the Mormon Church, on his way to
Salt Lake City from England.  At the time, she had left an abusive husband
in England, and had a toddler girl from that bad husband, which of course
became Thomas Hill's step child in SLC, Utah.  She was my Great Great
grandmother.

For you thinkers out there, you're probably wondering: Wait, then how is
Thomas Hill your Great Great Great grandfather??  We'll he married this
step child, when she was in hear teens as a polygamous second wife with her
mother, and I descended from that!

So what is ethically worse, that or rape?

Yes, Genealogy and all history is oh so much fun.  I can't wait till we can
achieve the ability to resurrect these poor souls and work to make true
justice - between them, and us, paying them back for being our creators.

Brent Allsop






On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 9:29 AM, PJ Manney <pjmanney at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 12:58 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> > "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there".
> >
> > We cannot apply modern standards of behaviour to the past. Even the
> > 1960s-70s was very different from today. Far less centuries ago.
> >
> > We are here now because our ancestors did what was necessary to
> > survive, even in the most brutal savage circumstances. The choice you
> > face is non-existence because your ancestors didn't manage to survive.
>
> Excellent point.  In the case of my family, abandonment could even be
> considered a social norm at the time.  While my paternal grandfather
> was still an SOB (I have lots of outside confirmation on this point),
> he was only one of many men who abandoned their families in the 1930s.
>  I do not believe his abandonment was due to financial issues as much
> as personal issues, but the level of family abandonment during the
> Great Depression was staggering.  They called it "Poor Man's Divorce."
>  My maternal grandfather financially abandoned my mother's family
> around the same time, although he hung around to get what he could
> from them.
>
> None of this was unusual at the time.  Just like rape is horrifyingly
> "normal" in times of war.  Which is, again, why I'm so surprised at
> Spike's response.
>
> Tell your cousin.  You won't be telling her anything unusual from a
> genealogical perspective.  Maybe you should watch this show and see
> how even these people have rapists, murderers, abandoners, etc. in
> their families: http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/who-do-you-think-you-are
> Even more interesting: like all families, these celebrities have been
> told family stories of how wonderful their ancestors are, only to find
> out the truth is something else entirely.  :-)
>
> PJ
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