Dealing with the lack of records is one thing, but how do you confront multiple records of crimes such as robbery, horrors visited upon the indigenous, child abuse, rape, pogroms, murders, enslavement, massacres, genocides, and other disasters? I think we all encounter family history that is difficult to handle. The discovery of a child rape left my mother, sister and me sobbing as we read the court records of what my mother's father had done.
Years ago, when I found a record indicating that a probable direct ancestor owned other human beings as slaves, my response was simple. I stopped researching for a while.
Eventually I decided that I needed to learn more about the institution of slavery in the US, the records I would find, and the harder part; doing the work to document the enslaved people and their descendancies. In this way, descendants of enslavers can help repair some of the historical damage, because many of the records which can help descendants are only found in the various records related to ownership of not just land, but people who are otherwise not named in official records.
Groups such as Coming To The Table, the United States Black Heritage project at Wikitree, and now Ten Million Names all put people willing to do this difficult work together with those who are just beginning their journey. There are groups confronting genocide by indexing those records, to help descendants.
It is important to realize that there is trauma in finding tragedies from the past, whether from natural or human-caused death, destruction and other injuries. We researchers are not experiencing the physical and emotional pain of victims, but witnessing carries its own injuries, so recognize this and realize when you need to back off and find some different work to do. We want to tell the stories, not be wounded by them.
This past week amidst the ongoing disaster of war in both Europe and Israel, I found a litany of news articles recounting crimes, injury, arrest, indictment and conviction of some collateral McBee relatives.
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| Andy McBee steals horse |
In one account, of the conviction of Andy McBee of burglary (his second conviction) it was said, "The wails and lamentations indulged in by the female McBees when the verdict was announced filled the courthouse. Some little sympathy was felt for the poor, miserable old mother, but as for Andy himself, all decent people were heartily rejoiced at his conviction, feeling that there was one criminal less at large owing to the jury's verdict"[1]. Andy's mother, Cyntha Ann Robinson McBee was 57 at this time, and would live another 16 years. She would witness Andy being accused of still more crimes, including rape of a young girl, and also the conviction of two of her grandaughters for prostitution, also in 1896 - in the same court session as above [2]. I felt even worse when looking at the tree again and realizing that Andy had slept the night in his uncle William Travis' house, and stolen his cousin Jim's horse, for $3!
In spite of the bewildering crime profusion of this first cousin three times removed, I'm glad I uncovered the story. We have to wade through muck sometimes to keep following the trail. Have courage, and face the work when you can. Telling these hard truths is important.
1. The Opinion-Tribune, Glenwood, Iowa, Thursday 31 December 1896, page 6, columns 3-4, Andy McBee burglary trial description; Newpapers.com : accessed 11 October 2023.
2. The Opinion-Tribune, Glenwood, Iowa, Thursday 26 November 1896, page 2, column 1, "inmates in custody at the jail"; Newspapers.com : accessed 12 October 2023.
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| Valorie Zimmerman |
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