In addition to accuracy concerns in any genealogy effort, there is the sensitive subject of personal privacy to consider. Understandably, some people might not want personal information about them to be distributed to the general public on the World Wide Web, no matter how noble the intent. In today's computer age, most of us have already experienced too many unwanted intrusions into our personal lives. Beyond this general irritation, a genealogical study also threatens to expose embarrassing skeletons lurking in the family closet. We might be tempted to speculate, for example, why, around 1830, young Thomas and Ann Cunneyworth would hazard a winter journey to the New World with their infant son John, who apparently came into the world prematurely, only two months after their wedding.
To some extent, the times they are a-changin', of course. In the modern world of common-law marriages, single parents and other shattered taboos, many dark secrets of the past now hardly raise an eyebrow. In addition, our ancestors' medical histories might hold great value for us, their descendants and genetic inheritors. Any pretensions to scientific objectivity in genealogy, however, must be tempered by a healthy respect for both the dead and the living.
I have encountered some cases of extreme sensitivity to questions of genetic parentage, particularly among the oldest living generation of the family. This has led me to recognize just how much the old morality has scarred the lives of some unfortunate individuals, especially women, beyond any hope of rehabilitation. I have no intention of disturbing their hard-won peace of mind by probing into what is for them, a very private part of their lives. Truth at any cost is simply not my objective. Rather, my intention is to gather statistics and historical anecdotes for descendants of Thomas Cunneyworth and Ann Reynard and to allow living descendants to trace their ancestry back to this couple.
In keeping with the above cautionary note, my genealogical documentation about early generations of Cunneyworths, published on the web, includes detail information for all Cunneyworth ancestors, tracing the family tree as far back in time as I can go. It does not include information about recent living generations of the family, however, and I am not actively researching living generations. Nevertheless, my family history research has accumulated some statistics (births, marriages, children) for living relatives, tracing the family tree forward in time to younger family members. This Recent Generations information is "privacy-sensitive". It will not be published on the web, nor in any other form, without the express permission of those individuals involved. For those who are interested in reviewing and correcting (or extending) information that I may already have about them, I would be happy to provide them with excerpts in a controlled and limited fashion... portions relevant only to them and their direct ancestors, no other branches of the family.
If you would like to:
- submit updates to Recent Generations information (births, marriages, deaths) or
- request a copy of any Recent Generations information I may have about you, or
- extend these Cunneyworth family web pages to include information about yourself