Be wary what you wish for In her programme for the BBC about Medieval birth, marriage and death, Dr Helen Castor cited LP Hartley’s opening quote from The Go-Between: ‘They say the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.’ This statement brought to mind two situations which crossed my path recently.
The first was an article from The Guardian newspaper regarding DNA testing which was posted on the Family Tree Facebook forum. The Guardian writer hinted that to counter the lauding of the many benefits for taking a DNA test, warnings should be printed on the kits to inform the participants that, should they follow up the results, there could be potentially disturbing and upsetting consequences. Children had found that their parents were not their parents, their fathers were not their fathers, that there were unknown step-siblings, among other things.