To read or not to read? How to handle a deceased family member’s personal letters

I have created wonderful heirloom books filled with letters that help tell the story of a family. Sometimes, though, we may not feel so comfortable reading our deceased loved ones’ personal reflections. Before you include their letters in your book, reflect on how they’d feel about it—then, make an informed, thoughtful decision.

My parents divorced when I was a child, and I do not have a relationship with my father. But I was close to my mother until her death. She shared a great deal with me, and we spoke openly about our feelings. When I was sorting her estate I came upon things I was excited to find: letters from me that she had saved, a memory-keeping journal where a handful of questions were answered in her pristine penmanship (how I wish she had written more in those pages!), a scrapbook of her youth that she had made in her fifties. I reproduced some things, including favorite handwritten recipes and letters between us, in a tribute book I wrote in her honor about a year after she died. I did not, however, include any of the letters sent between her and her newlywed husband when he was stationed in Korea.

If my mother were alive and we had discovered those saved letters together, I have no doubt she would have shared details with me. She would have told me why she saved them even after a bitter divorce. She would have talked about young love and her dreams and she would have answered any questions I had.

But my mother was no longer here to answer questions or to provide context. At first I was excited to unearth that correspondence; then, as now, I would cherish anything that connected me to my mom. I opened the top letter and began reading. The letter was intimate. It wasn’t sexual, but it was clearly intended for my mother’s eyes only. I refolded the letter, put it back in its envelope, and chose not to read any further. It felt like an invasion of her privacy, and I wanted to respect that.

Was I bound by some moral code not to read my mother’s letters? I don’t think so. To me, it just felt wrong. So I followed my gut.

Indeed, most genealogists regard letters as valuable family artifacts to be mined for family history information and stories. As genealogist Denise May Lovesick writes in her piece “Ethics, Etiquette and Old Family Letters,” “to reject reading old letters on the basis of ‘personal privacy’ seems counter-productive.” 

In an online exchange about the ethics of reading letters of a deceased person, questions arise: Can the dead be rights-holders, morally? Is it an invasion of privacy to read letters not intended for you? Does the deceased have a right to have their memory protected? As one contributor shares, “the damage caused to that person is zero (he's dead), while everybody will benefit from the historical knowledge.”

Is it always okay to read (and share) letters from our deceased family?

So while it may not be morally or ethically wrong to read your ancestors’ letters (I have created quite a few books of family correspondence that are treasured parts of those families’ legacies!), if you have reservations, consider these questions:

1. What is giving you pause?

   You may be worried that the letters will reveal a side of your family member you knew nothing about; that may be the case, and you should prepare yourself for that inevitability should you decide to read them. Perhaps you feel like you would be invading their privacy; if you have conviction that if they were alive, they would not want you to read the letters, then it may be prudent to respect those wishes, surmised though they may be.

2. Are you reluctant to read the letters, to share them, or both?

   Remember that there is a difference between you or another loved one reading your parents’ letters, versus digitizing and printing them for a wider audience. You cannot decide whether to share a personal correspondence until you read it, and then you will need to make an informed decision: Will reproducing the letters (in a family history book, for instance) provide insight or historical context without maligning the letter-writer? Then you may want to share them. Will reproducing the letters reveal sensitive information that might hurt someone else, living or deceased? Then you may want to reconsider.

3. How would you want someone to act if the letters were your own?

   Imagine you have a stash of letters hidden in your closet—they are meaningful to you, but private. You have saved them, and hidden them, for reasons known only to you. If a family member were to discover them after you died, would you want them to read them? Such consideration may help you make a mindful decision.

There is no black-and-white answer to the question, Should I read my deceased loved one’s personal letters? It is not morally wrong to read them, nor is it necessarily an invasion of their privacy. But there may be good reasons your gut tells you not to read them—and if that is the case, I hope these reflections will help you come to an answer that is right for you.

If you have a collection of letters that you feel tells an important part of your family history and would like help building an heirloom book around them, please reach out to discuss how we could work together.