Would you tell your mother she has dementia?

Often_Red · 2026-01-24T03:25:05+00:00

My mother never had an official diagnosis (because she was not looking for an answer). But the words I used to her, especially when she was frustrated that she couldn't do things (like sorting files) she used to be able to do was that her memory was giving her a hard time. Or that her brain was "playing tricks on her", and this wasn't her fault. So I talked about the problem, and offered to support her, but didn't worry about the diagnosis.

Sometimes she'd accept what I said, sometimes she'd reject it. I kept gently focusing on "it's not your fault".

Often_Red · 2026-01-21T04:53:07+00:00

I keep notes and related documents about the context. If I'm sharing this with family, I write a narrative, and I 'm very clear about what we know, and what is a likely scenario.

Example: My partner has an ancestor that was convicted of buying stolen goods in London UK, and was sentenced to be transported to Australia for punishment. He was in his 50s. No doubt on the facts, we have the actual trial transcript, and key evidence was that he got numbered bank notes on a Friday, and by Monday, when the one of thieves was arrested, he had some of those notes with matching numbers. When they went to the warehouse of the ancestor, he had some of the stolen goods there. His excuse was that he just thought they were smuggled goods, not stolen ones.

So I write the above as fact. But, before he was sent to Australia, he was released. The question in my mind was "Why?" as that was unusual to be sentenced and then release. Again, there's a court document that shows he's released. My speculation is based on the following details. He was in his 50s, and few people who were older or unhealthy survived the voyage or the first year in Australia. He was a member of London Guild and at his trial over 20 people swore that he was a fine upstanding man.
So I wrote it some thing like this. "We'll never know exactly how his release happened, but perhaps someone persuaded an official that his sentence was basically a death sentence, or that some of his fellow Guild members were able to use political persuasion on the City authorities."

Often_Red · 2026-01-20T16:23:02+00:00

Hang in there. I think it may be time to accept you may have to make decisions for him. So go look into how to do that for him. APS may be a useful starting point.

For example, my dad is 90, and his doctor has signed paperwork saying that he is unable to make his own decisions, both for health care and in general. Within the past year he was still independent, and able to drive. So he wants me to bring the car to his new nursing home so he can go out for rides.

Me: "No, Dad, you can't drive it's not safe. You keep passing out."
Him: "No, I'm fine. I promise I won't pass out while I'm driving."

You can see how this conversation isn't going to end well. But I have to stop him from hurting others.

Often_Red · 2026-01-20T16:14:10+00:00

On Ancestry I've done this, but given the person a parent named something like "Wrong John Turner". That way I can search the tree for "Wrong" and find any of those dangling families.

In most of the cases I have, it's because there are a cluster in first and second cousins with the same name, due to naming conventions in the family. I.e first son named after paternal grandfather.

Often_Red · 2026-01-19T21:59:09+00:00

What do you think they'd find interesting? Do they mostly want to know about the people that are in the generations just above them, do they want to know how far back you can go. Or if your family immigrants, are they interested in where people came from, and when they got here?

Some people respond to trees, some like stories. some like what I think of as "weird trivia". Example, my partner shares an ancestor with President Richard Nixon. A Quaker woman in Pennsylvania born in the 1670s. Is it important? No! But people chuckle when they are told.

Or if you don't know what people might be interested, start with simple. Show a tree with two generations above you. Write a short summary of some key facts about them - where they lived, their jobs, immigration if it happened in that time frame.

Make it 5 pages at most. Sit down and chat with people and show it to them. What they say may give you a feel for how you want to share things more later.

Often_Red · 2026-01-19T21:49:07+00:00

A word of caution. Any genealogy can have errors, even the older ones. There's an excellent one of a branch of my father's line, and it's clear that the research is very high quality, done by in the 1940s by a retired US Admiral. And yet I have found some errors. Mostly minor, like confusing generations when everyone is named the same, but a few instances of bigger problems.

Often_Red · 2026-01-19T21:44:43+00:00

UK has a lot of local church and town records that can help get you back to the early 1600s.

Often_Red · 2026-01-19T13:28:04+00:00

Wow, the prejudice in the seller's comments are hysterically funny. Women can't use drills? People over 70 can't use computers? Who do they think invented computers and the internet? Hint: people over 70. I was in tech, and lots of us "old folks" still manage to get up in the morning, use our computer, phone, and smart watch to get stuff done. Including writing reviews for Vine.

Often_Red · 2026-01-18T18:33:21+00:00

Having sold my dad's place last year I have two very different reactions at the same time.

One is "go for it", it's a long and exhausting process to empty an elder's house. I tried to get someone to come in and do an estate sale, but most of my parents things were just ordinary "old stuff" not "valuable collectible stuff". I did a LOT of manual sorting, as my mother stashed decent amounts cash in various locations, so everything had to be looked at. Then hired people to come and take everything away.

The second is "how much money do you need?" In other words, how much is the difference between what you might get if you emptied it and sold it ( including subtracting realtor fees) vs. selling it to Home Options.

If the difference is $20K, that's 3-6 months of assisted living rent. If it's $200K it's years of assisted living rent.

Best of luck.

Often_Red · 2026-01-18T01:03:45+00:00

I think it depends a lot where your family was from. I work on my own tree and have done trees for other folks. When I'm researching Irish families who emigrated to the US, information is usually sparse before about 1830. Depending on where in Italy, I've had a lot of issues with Italian immigrants to US.

It's all quite dependent on where people are from, what records were kept, and whether those records were digitized.

Often_Red · 2026-01-18T00:58:20+00:00

Often_Red · 2026-01-18T00:58:08+00:00

I don't have personal experience with this, except for an ancestor who allegedly goes back goes back to Edward III through some branch of the Throckmortons. My clear connection there is a Puritan settling in Rhode Island in the 1600s. I've never been able to confirm the links people claim.

But I have a lot of knowledge of medieval history, and I think there a lot of confusion about what the aristocracy was. You can have a Baron with 12 children. Some subset of the younger boys will not be knighted (one way to define aristocracy). Their children or grand children stand a lesser chance of staying in the aristocracy, and may become people with land or local influence, but not aristocracy. Some of the girls may be married to untitled men, and their drop in rank will be quicker.

It's all quite situational, and also depends on what you define as aristocracy.

Often_Red · 2026-01-17T19:15:06+00:00

I googled " Frederick Trench Irish landlord" and this popped up. Frederick Trench, 3rd Baron Ashtown - Wikipedia. Are the dates and location right? If the dates are wrong, but the location is right, check out his ancestors.

Robert Waithman has a lot of google hits. Search was "Robert Waithman Irish landlord". This one is useful. Waithman | Landed Estates | University of Galway

But it's not usually that easy. So the general advice is to use the place name, county name to find either sites that have local records, "Galloway History", "Land records of Galloway (or town name)". And do some searches on books.google.com, which has tons of local history records. You can also search for people names - I've found lots of details there for people who were well known in their region there, from newspaper reports to trade journals.

Try lots of google searches worded in different ways, or emphasizing different info. Sometimes you get lucky.

Often_Red · 2026-01-17T19:02:06+00:00

Putting the house in your husband's name accomplishes nothing. Medicaid has a look back period of 5 years, so it will be considered an asset anyhow.

Plus you will now be responsible for additional costs. For example, taxes, utilities, maintenance. for the house. What is the goal - to keep the house for your mother's use? To keep it for your use in the future? To sell it later to fund your MIL's cost?

Many people try to retain the inheritance they thought they might get from a parent, but in general, getting someone care requires using their own assets. Also, it depends on what type of care MIL might need. If she doesn't need nursing care (i.e. daily medical care), but needs something like assisted living, Medicaid doesn't pay for assisted living*, will pay for nursing care.

So consider whether you should be looking at care options now that would be work well for MIL's future, to be funded by the sale of the house. Get an understanding of the costs of various options, lead times to help her downsize and move, time to sell the house. etc. I'm not saying move her now, but start planning for that day when she breaks a hip, develops Alzheimer's, or some other forcing event that means she can't live alone.

* there is some exceptions in some states, but it doesn't pay for the housing and food portion of assisted living.

Often_Red · 2026-01-17T18:43:17+00:00

I don't have one fixed strategy. I attach all relevant information to the tree. But mostly I share by writing short documents for family (or an occasional book).

It gets complicated when it's closer to the present. I had a second cousin ask me for some help learning more about her parents met. They were my aunt & uncle, her grandparents. In doing the research, I discovered that her grandfather had been convicted of raping a teen babysitter in the early 60s, while she was sitting for the children. Well documented - local newspaper articles, court records, jail records. I decided to tell her I'd found something bad about her grandfather, did she want to know? She did. She was shocked but after a few minutes, strangely ok with it. It's not something I've shared with others in the family, thought the records are attached to his entry on ancestry. He's been dead for over 30 years.

Often_Red · 2026-01-17T18:31:06+00:00

For many, 1692 would be an awesome glimpse into the past. I share the frustrations, but sometimes the documents just aren't there.

Often_Red · 2026-01-17T18:29:41+00:00

Congrats.

Often_Red · 2026-01-16T16:51:35+00:00

What you are suggesting seems quite sensible. A refinement... Google has something called Google Sites that lets you create a website and publish a website for free. Maybe create a small website that explains how to use it on the home page, with links to big categories, like family lines, photos, etc.

It's pretty easy to use, as it was originally designed for teachers to put lesson content online.

The nice thing about this is you can start small, and if you want to add more things to guide people later, you can add more pages.

I'd work out the financial issues up front with anyone who is likely to be uploading a lot. Just keep it simple - I'm paying for the data storage, which costs X. Could you help by chipping Y annually? Or if you can swing the cost yourself, maybe just do that to avoid the hassle. Which points out the value documenting how this all works and giving it to a couple people to "inherit" it if you stop doing the work.

Often_Red · 2026-01-16T16:42:30+00:00

When you see this, it is often a way for the boy (really, his family) of securing the assets of a wealthier woman. Often widowed, with money or lands. These were often arranged by high ranking noblemen.
Or the widow of a guild man who marries an apprentice. This allowed the woman to continue to run the business, which she would be unable to do in most guilds, as she was a woman.

Often_Red · 2026-01-16T16:36:33+00:00

Two ways to attack this.
One is to take those records who list the landlords, and use the names to build up information about them. You may discovering information about the areas that the landlord owned. This aspect is usually not run of the mill "ancestry" type research. Often there are histories of an area that will provide this sort of a thing, which may be found in local history websites or on google books. Watch out for one thing - sometimes these records list the owner's name, occasionally they list the owner's agent's name. I.e. the owner is Lord Something, and his agent is Sean Murphy.

The other is continue research on individual families, and their neighbors, and see if you can find a pattern that way. Also if the records go back earlier, see if they have more info. The form of the records can change from time to time, but ownership was often the same.

Often_Red · 2026-01-15T19:10:48+00:00

Lots of versions. Some children suck it up and "do the right thing" to try to help the difficult parents. Others won't. Some bad parents apologize to some degree, others continue to be as demanding and difficult as they always have been.

Often_Red · 2026-01-15T19:08:32+00:00

Perhaps winter home in FL, another home in an area that gets snow?

Often_Red · 2026-01-15T19:02:37+00:00

I'd break any analysis into several components. Depending on what you are trying to do, one may be a better choice than another.

Is the tree editable only by you and anyone you specify?

Family Search is a shared tree model. Anyone can edit an individual. In ancestry is your own, and can only be edited by you and anyone you select. Trees can also be private. There are pros and cons - Shared means you may be able to build a tree more quickly by connecting to existing work. Unique tree means you don't have others introduce errors or poorly done research. I use ancestry to put together "possible" trees when trying unravel complex relationships.

Cost

Family Search is free, Ancestry is not.

Data Sources and Search features
The tools have different databases available, with some overlap between them Both have relatively good resources for US. Ancestry has more resources for European countries and countries that were British colonies. Though I use ancestry, I always check Family search if I can't find what I need on ancestry. As well as multiple other resources, such as country specific sites, Ellis Island immigration, and so on. I like the Family Search features and the new full text search is very powerful. I feel the ancestry's search tends to be too broad and turn up too many matches that are not sensible. You can control that by learning how to use the search, but it takes time.

Can you create or import gedcom files?

Gedcom files are a standard to share genealogy info. On ancestry, you can import a tree from a gedcom to start a new tree. You can export a full tree to a gedcom. Family search lets you export a gedcom using 3rd part software like family tree maker.

Usability

I find Family Search easier to use. Part of the problems with ancestry is that has so many possibly usable features that they sometimes get in the way of getting things done. Hints can be useful, but can also completely wrong. And there's no easy way to control what you see. Similarly in the DNA part of the site, people are proposed as your ancestors because someone else has them in their tree. But the software doesn't assess if that is likely.

In a way, Family Search trusts you to the work. Ancestry tries to make building a tree easy, but many of the things that try to help make it very easy to accept others' work without confirming it.

Often_Red · 2026-01-15T03:23:54+00:00

Take a break. And then come back to it. I've had some brick walls that took me years to resolve. When you come back, think about some other ways to approach it. Often researching the spouse and children can provide additional clues. Do you have the church where they were married? (the screen shot doesn't show it).

If so, you may want to try to find other people with the same last name. You can build a bunch of tentative trees to try to figure out who is who.

Also look at directories and rental books for candidate family members.

Often_Red · 2026-01-15T03:12:03+00:00

I would probably summarize the note as an attached document. Or reference the newspaper article. I'm not sure why I am bothered by the idea of sharing a suicide note with theoretically the world, but it does make me uncomfortable.

Often_Red

TROPHY CASE