Genealogy and ethics question: my grandmother the felon (long and messy)

In My Humble Opinion
1

This one is bordering on a GD regarding privacy rights vs. the individual’s right to know. To make a long story short, my grandmother was raised primarily in an orphanage in Canada after her parents’ long and messy breakup. So that you have an idea about how little my dad’s side of the family communicates about these issues, my own father had no idea about any of this until he was almost 40 years old. (Why it never occurred to him to ask were his grandparents were, I have no idea.)

My grandmother is 88 years old now, and in recent years, upon my gentle questioning in the course of conducting some genealogical research, she has opened up a little bit about the circumstances of her childhood and how she came to the U.S. Based on some of the new information I had been able to collect from her and other relatives, I filed a bunch of Freedom of Information Act requests with INS and the National Archives to see if I could document the lives of my grandparents and great-grandparents (for all branches of the family, not just my grandmother’s). Most of them have turned up nothing so far, probably because the spelling of various family names has changed over the years. However, I did get a response back from INS, saying that there was a record for my grandmother’s mother, but that it was too old for them to retain and so it was housed at the National Archives; they even gave me the record # so I could request it more efficiently.

Unfortunately, before I got the chance to do so, my grandfather died. Part of the fallout surrounding his death included my discovery that not only did my grandmother probably never bother to naturalize (although she’s been here since 1930), she’s been voting all this time, which technically makes her deportable. My grandmother, the felon. Wonderful.

So although the odds of anyone bothering my 88-year-old Canadian-born grandmother, with the Social Security number and U.S. citizen children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are pretty slim, maybe I should get cracking on the citizenship stuff (for one thing, it’s possible that if I can document that her mother was a U.S. citizen, she would be a U.S. citizen at birth, and none of this would be an issue). However, my grandmother called and asked me to stop working on her family history. Why, you ask? Well, because her sister is uncomfortable with it. I should explain about my great-aunt: to be charitable, she is a difficult person. In stark contrast to my grandmother, she has spent most of her adult life filthy rich and living all over the world, after marrying a succession of old, wealthy men who die and leave her all their money. She orders people around and has absolutely no idea what it’s like to live in the real world, because she is used to having servants. Plus she looks absolutely nothing like my grandmother: for one thing, she’s a good 10” shorter. The rest of my family can’t stand her; I hadn’t seen her since I was a little kid, but after meeting her again a couple of years ago, I had to agree.

So my gut feeling is that there is a parentage issue and/or other potential family skeleton in the closet here. Really, I don’t care; I don’t see why that should reflect badly on my grandmother or anyone else still living, since they would have done nothing wrong. I just want to solve a family mystery and resolve any outstanding citizenship issues it’s possible to resolve on behalf of my grandmother. I asked my grandmother if she, herself, wanted me to stop what I was doing, since I’d discussed everything with her upfront and even gotten a signed release from her. Passive as she is, she just kept repeating “My sister wants you to stop.” I couldn’t even get her to articulate what she wanted. Finally, I threw in the towel and told her I would honor her request, even if it didn’t make any sense to me. My great-aunt is past 90 and not in good health, so I figured I could revisit the issue again when the moment was more opportune.

But my question is: don’t I have a right to know about the history of my own family? Most of the records I would request are old enough to be in the public domain, plus if I wanted to be sneaky (which I don’t), I still have my grandmother’s signed release. I honestly think she’s deferring to her sister, and she’s acted positively relieved when I’ve made other discoveries (one of which involved retrieving the entire file form the orphanage where she was raised, including the records of her late brother, whom I never met). I just want the secrecy and the lies to stop with this generation; is that so wrong? Is there any way I could pursue the remaining unsolved puzzles while still maintaining family harmony?

2

It sounds like an inheritance issue to me. Maybe grandma doesn’t want to piss off her sister so she’s still in the will. Or maybe there’s some dirt that should remain under the carpet until everyone involved is dead. You probably have every right to look this stuff up, but you should do it on the sly. Or wait until they’re gone.

3

Give the heave-ho to auntie. The stuck-up so-and-so deserves to have some skeletons rattled.

4

I’m of two minds.

The first mind is to let sleeping dogs lie. Suppose there is a big old nasty skeleton that no one under age 60 knows about. What would be gained from bringing it up? Especially if it may be harmful to someone currently living.

But the other mind says that it only seems to be this one great-aunt that’s concerned about the skeleton, so if hiding it is protecting anyone’s interests it’s probably hers. And I can’t see a reason to be too concerned about her interests.

I guess I’d go with the first mind: respect Gramma’s wishes for the sake of family harmony.

How would Auntie know if you did pursue this? Would you have to lie to Gramma about it?

5

I feel your pain. Information is a drug to genealogists, and the thought of not being able to access it is physically painful. You certainly have the right to do research, particularly if this is public information. It would seem that you have an emotional dilemma, rather than an ethical one. You can still pursue the information without telling your grandmother. That way you get what you need and aren’t hurting any feelings.

6

I hear ya on the citizenship stuff. My mom came down (from Canada) on her parents visa when she was under 12. When she married she never kept up with the “paperwork”. Ultimately when I was about 14 she ended up having problems with INS and was nearly deported even though my brothers and I were born here.

I don’t think you need your grandmother or your great aunts permission to attend to your genealogy. It is equally as much yours as it is theirs. I do however think that if they don’t support your search that you shouldn’t be upset with them if they decide to be forthcoming with the bits of information they do have. Additionally, I would not share what I found with them, if they find ithe results to be upsetting. If I understand your op correctly, you are doing this because it interests you and because you want to be informed, not because you are trying to out anyone.

In your place, I would continue merrily on and keep the results of my research to myself unless asked about it. I wouldn’t be trying to keep it a big secret though. If asked I would just say something like, “Yes, you asked me not to do the research. I am sorry it upsets you. I am not doing it to upset you. I am doing it because they are my ancestors to and I have an interest and the right to know.” All said with a warm hug and a kind smile.

7

I too think you should go ahead with your research, but keep the results to yourself. There may be some info that would make your grandmother’s relationship with her sister more clear too.
In my own family history it turned out that one of my great aunts didn’t have the same father as her sisters. For years this was kept quiet but eventually the knowledge caused a rift between two sisters who, as far as I know, never spoke again and one of them died recently. So, sure, it can be difficult on people when things are brought up that they’ve chosen to “forget,” but you have a right to know for yourself what’s in your family tree. (Plus it doesn’t sound like a similar rift would be the problem for you that it was for some of my relatives) You may just want to keep it as your private knowledge, at least for the next few years.

8

I just want to add that I so want to be your great-aunt . . .

9

No, you don’t, really. She is a very grumpy and bitter person, and is living a life completely divorced from reality. I never met any of her husbands (except one, when I was 4 years old, so I don’t really remember him), but everyone is amazed that she managed to snag such a nice guy.

I had reserved judgement about her myself, but when I met her for the first time as an adult a couple of years ago, it was very, very weird. We were all in Philadelphia staying in a hotel for a family Bat Mitzvah, and I unexpectedly ended up in Philly early, due to a cancelled flight (long story). She and my grandmother were going to stay in the same room, and over my grandmother’s objections, she refused to let me stay with them. (I see my grandmother maybe once a year, so I was pretty pissed off.)

The next morning, I talked them into going for breakfast at a café across the street. My great-aunt offered to treat us to bagels and coffee, and I thought, “wow, maybe she’s trying to make amends for last night.” There was one guy behind the counter, and a line of people out the door. You should have seen her interrogating the poor guy about her bagel options. When she finally made up her mind, she seriously asked him to rub the salt off her bagel. It was surreal. I joked that if she didn’t like the service, she should never go to Russia. Her response? “Oh, I’ve been to Russia many times.” Surprised, and wondering how she would have dealt with Soviet manners, I asked her when and where. “Oh, on a cruise ship.” Yeah, that’s the authentic Soviet experience.

Then she proceeded to spend breakfast talking trash about my mother, whom she hasn’t seen in 30 years and who never did or said anything to harm her. It was all I could do to keep from making a public scene, but in the interest of my poor pacifist grandmother and the Bat Mitzvah we were all about to attend, I kept my mouth shut.

Besides, she’s dying of colon cancer right now, so I really don’t think you’d want to be her.

The possible inheritance angle is an intriguing one, and one I hadn’t thought of; she never had children, so my grandmother is definitely her closest living family member. Plus my grandmother is pretty cash-strapped, as my grandfather did a good job managing the family finances until a couple of years before his death, but apparently really screwed some things up and lost almost all their savings. My dad and aunt were shocked to find out, in dealing with the estate issues, that my grandmother doesn’t even know how to balance her checkbook or use an ATM card. And this in spite of the fact that she and my grandfather ran a business together for more than 40 years.

10

Oh, and to those who have suggested doing the research anyway and just not mentioning it to my grandmother: I have two problems with that.

  1. I am a lousy liar, and that includes lies of omission. When I get excited about something like this, I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut.

  2. After all, I did promise my grandmother I would stop, according to her wishes. So my own sense of familial respect requires me to abide by that unless she changes her wishes.

11

If this is the big sticking point for you, then stop only until after the great-aunt dies. Your grandmother gave that as her only complaint, probably more out of a sense of fear over what her sister would do than anything else.

12

Er, that should be “start only after”, sigh…

13

Well… Honestly, I think you should leave it alone.

There are two reasons you’re doing this:

a) Your grandmother’s citizenship, and
b) your curiosity

The thing is, everthing is fine as far as #a goes. Yeah, she’s not technically here legally, but noone’s going to come knocking on her door. Also, you’ll likely create some real work for her when you do unravel things. Likely, she’ll have to go through the standard citizenship program, including lots of studying. Perhaps they’ll even temporarily take away her citizenship until she goes through the program. If this is important to her, by all means go for it. But I get the feeling it’s not important to her, but rather it’s important to you.

Now, I suspect that part #a is a red herring, and that this is really all about #b: digging into something dark and mysterious and close to home even. But the thing is, it’s a living person’s life you’re digging into. If a friend of yours had a private investigator dig into your life because they thought you were interesting, how would you feel?

And most importantly: even if you don’t care for the aunt, it sounds like your grandmother does. And seeing as how this is being done under the flag of her best interest, I think you should really really respect her wishes.

Oh, and I really really cringed when I read the (somewhat jokingly) suggestion that you may use your grandmothers previous approval to do this when she’s pretty much retracted it. That wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do.

14

FWIW, I wouldn’t in a million years use my grandmother’s authorization without a renewal of her express permission. That would be icky and unethical, and believe me, I’m all about ethics. And I didn’t provide all the detail here, but what actually happened when my grandfather died is that I was asked for my professional opinion on the matter; I am an immigration paralegal.

After the funeral and its aftermath, my great-aunt offered to take my grandmother on a cruise, as she had spent most of her adult life caring for my grandfather (who busted a leg and hip very badly in his 30s, and never walked properly after that; he was bedridden for the last several years of his life, and basically my grandmother allowed herself to become a prisoner in her own home. Long story.) My grandmother was dying to go, of course, so my stepmom asked what we had to do to get her a passport. Can’t do that with no proof of citizenship; since she was born in Canada, and I had obtained her birth certificate (with her permission, of course), I told them I could probably get her a Canadian passport (provided they would believe the extremely roundabout documentation of her several name changes, another long story), but that a Canadian passport does not in itself allow a person to reside in the U.S. Since this was right after 9/11, the last thing I wanted to do was get my grandmother stuck outside the U.S. somewhere with no way of returning and nowhere to go; she has been back to Canada for exactly one trip of several days since 1930, and we have no family left there.

So yes, I am interested; after all, it’s my history, too (as well as that of my father, aunt, and cousins, who were all very psyched that I was working on this). But if she decided to leave the U.S. (which I talked her out of, by the way; too risky), she was quite possibly going to be completely screwed. My father and stepmom even spoke to her congressperson’s office back then, at her request, so it’s not like my grandmother was completely against the idea of straightening all this out. After all, you may have noticed the recent trend to deny public benefits to non-citizens, and Lord only knows what would happen if she ended up in the hospital and had to apply for Medicaid.

P.S. Certain portions of the naturalization process are waived for people past a certain age who have resided in the U.S. for extended periods. I’d have to look up the details, though.

15

Eva Luna wrote

That’s the most important thing, and I commend you.

Sounds like you know far more about this than I do, and it also sounds like you have some valid reasons for pursuing the citizenship angle.

You should really think on the privacy issue though. Everybody has something secret, and you could uncover something that could potentially cause your aunt and/or your grandmother a lot of grief. If they’re against it, I recommend waiting a few years.

16

well theres an easy and effective way to get around both objections.

Have someone else do it. Write down what you want found, what you want to do, what things you want to know and a a list of anything that might be unburied. Tell them not to tell you anything until

A) the list of things you set out to do is complete and done
or
B) Your great aunt dies.

You cant say anything about it if you dont know

You promised your granmother you would stop.

17

It just occured to me. If you grandmother has citizenship problems then so can your great aunt.

There could be problems in identity, inheritance, taxes and all of that if your great aunt isnt what she says she is.

18

Eva, as a lawyer I am concerned about the possibility that your grandmother could be denied benefits, but it sounds as though it is probably possible to get her naturalized without digging up a lot of family history–especially as regards your great-aunt. I think the two issues are probably rather separable, even though you’ve come to think of them as being very intertwined. You could stop researching the genealogy/history of your family (which I agree you ethically must do, since you promised your grandmother) while still getting Grandma naturalized, if Grandma still agrees that she wants that to happen.

I’m a genealogy nut too, and on both sides of the family, I have recently seen what can happen when old family secrets come out. Suicides, shotgun weddings, children put up for adoption, children farmed out to relatives, old family rifts–these things can still be very painful, even years later, and even for people who were not directly involved.

I’ll give an example: my great-grandmother killed herself nearly 100 years ago, but when my mother recently learned of her grandmother’s suicide from a genealogy nut cousin of hers, it caused her a lot of anguish–and Mom was born 40 years after the event took place. The suicide itself is an interesting nugget of genealogical information, because it explains a lot about the dynamics of that family, but Mom and Grandma had to live through the aftereffects. For me, it’s removed enough that it’s just interesting. For my Mom, though, this knowledge has been heartbreaking because it is very hard for her to realize now what a painful life her mother had, particularly since Grandma has been gone for 30 years.

While you certainly do have a right to know about your family history, I think your family members also have a right to privacy–a right that trumps your desire to know, at least as long as they’re alive. Furthermore, this isn’t just a situation about “rights”–the feelings of your family members of course need to be considered. (Eva, it’s clear that you know this, but I feel compelled to spell it out for the folks who are saying “screw Great-Aunt, do what you like.”)

It sounds as though it might be best to wait on as much of this part of your project as is possible until your great-aunt, at least, has passed on. I’m guessing that there are probably other portions of your genealogy that you could investigate until then.

19

Others are suggesting clever ways of violating what your grandmother specifically asked you not to do. You strike me as very honest, and I really hope you don’t listen to them.

20

Possibly, but I’m guesing that since my great-aunt has traveled in and out of the U.S. probably hundreds of times while my grandmother has not, she has straightened out her citizenship status somehow or another. Possibly through one of her various marriages; as far as I know, all but one of her husbands were U.S. citizens. (The most recent was a Mexican citizen of Lithuanian Jewish descent; the reason why I hadn’t seen her in so long is that she was liviing for many years on his estate in Mexico. When he finally died, she relocated to the U.S. for the better medical facilities.)