Why all the negative energy?

2012-06-07T14:28:48Z

I hope this post doesn't wind up sounding like a rant. I would only be adding to the negative energy I found this morning.

I found a genealogy blog solely devoted to making fun of people who have errors in their published family trees.

Who among us has not found a published family tree containing our own ancestors?

And maybe contacted the owner, providing correct information, and offering to untangle some limbs?

And maybe getting no reply at all, or perhaps one that hotly defends the errors?

And maybe we blog about it. That, I get.

What I do not get is the significant investment of time and energy expended in searching out family trees unrelated to my own, looking for obvious errors and broadcasting it in a blog solely devoted to sarcastic fingerpointing.

AND failing at the same time to provide the correct information.

Because we all know that some folks just seize on a string of search results and re-publish them, compounding the error.

So what's accomplished by that?

Of course, I have to consider where I found the link to the referenced blog.

At the Find-a-Grave forums. Where more often than not, all that's going on is negative.

I had gone there to see how far behind the cemetery fix-it thread was.

And ran across one of those discussion threads where someone with way too much time on their hands was asking...

Look at this photo and see if you think it's a post-mortem photo...you can't see a casket, but I'm just sure it's a post-mortem photo...

Because Find-a-Grave does not permit post-mortem photos on its grave records, and someone just might need to be cyber-whipped.

One commenter pointed out that the subject's eyes could have been closed when the photo was taken.

A couple of commenters tried valiantly to talk about the differences in burial and mourning rituals in other cultures, and in western US culture over history.

Then, words like creepy, jarring, physically repulsed, SCARY (caps in original), and disturbing started creeping into the comments.

And all I could think about was the wonderful work of the volunteer photographers at Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, who give modern day grieving parents a tastefully photographed portrait of their deceased child - the only one they will ever have.

I understand the rules at Find-a-Grave. But where is all the judgement coming from?

If you don't want to see a post-mortem photo, don't look.

But don't judge the family for having it.

comments

Shakin' the Family Tree

Why all the negative energy?