Genealogy Pride 2024

June is Pride Month, a time when LGBTQ+ lives and history are recognized and celebrated. This got me thinking about the intersection of Pride Month and genealogy. Here are a few reflections based on my own experiences:

·        A cousin of my father’s—a WWII veteran—committed suicide at the age of 26. When I began talking with some of my older cousins in the late 1990s, they spoke in hushed tones about the mental health issues that led to his death. Rumors that he was gay were even more whispered. The stigmas were so strong that they couldn’t be openly discussed even 50 years after his passing.

·        My grandfather, Jack Weil, had two brothers (Abe and Moe) and a sister (Sadie) who never married. Were they gay? I’m not sure—family members told me that Sadie dated men seriously, but it "just never happened for her." I do know that my great-uncle Abe Weil was quite eccentric, owned an antique shop, and had the icon of a roller skate (or ice skate?) on his tombstone.

·        Getting genealogical software to recognize same-sex relationships was a struggle for the first 10+ years I was doing family history research. I had to "trick" the software into accepting my cousin’s family by initially entering one member of the couple as a man, then changing her gender afterward. Even then, I would receive errors every time I accessed her record!

·        Indicating that someone is trans or non-binary is still challenging with the software I’ve encountered. Most programs assume a static gender binary: a person is born male and remains male for life. In reality, a person might be assumed male as a child but identify with a different gender—or none at all—later in life. Newer software has more options for gender and doesn’t base relationships on the gender binary.

·        Names change too, and I try very hard to avoid deadnaming relatives. I’m not always successful, as records are often tied to "official" names rather than the names people use every day.

My genealogical philosophy is to represent people and relationships in my records as they truly are, rather than in some idealized form. I grew up with gay cousins who had families of their own and saw the generations before me slowly come to terms with their prejudiced notions of the traditional Jewish family and gender expectations. With the current generation, I’ve been thrilled to include more same-sex couples, trans cousins, and non-traditional family units in ways that are... unremarkable and normal. As it should be. Happy Pride!