I discovered an online article published by the Telegraph in London with a cute title of Why Shaking the Family Tree can be Bad for your Health. I thought to myself, "This should be a cute, tongue-in-cheek article." Wrong! Author Elizabeth Day is serious.
The article quotes a number of instances in which genealogists want psychotherapy to be made available for people who stumble across unpleasant discoveries while researching their family history. The article claims, "Many of Britain's four million amateur genealogists will end up discovering illegitimacy, bigamy, adoption and previously unknown relatives in the course of their research." Somehow, I doubt if the problem is confined to the British Isles.
The author also quotes Else Churchill of the Society of Genealogists. You can read this interesting article here.
