AIBU to think dead people’s letters should die with them?

[Hyggemama]

Just curious what people’s opinions are on this after having an experience which made me a bit uncomfortable.
Background: When elderly relatives of mine died recently some other relatives took it upon themselves to trawl through their historic personal letters. Granted some were circa 1930s/40s so had really interesting first hand accounts of historical events. However I also felt that a lot was probably very private and deeply personal, e.g. those written during teenaged years. I wouldn’t want my future relatives to be reading WhatsApps I sent when I was 15. But on the other hand dead people can’t be mortified can they?!
Anyway, I’d be interested to know do you think… please vote
YANBU: it’s an invasion of privacy, personal correspondence should not be read by others after death.
YABU: Out of respect for their lives / history I actually want to find out as much as I can and am entitled to read through their letters etc

Again, when should someone destroy items they want kept private? I’m 42, I hope to live another few decades. Should I destroy sentimental items that I cherish now in case I die unexpectedly early, but in doing so prevent myself having joy and comfort in those items for hopefully many decades to come? What about if someone planned to destroy items once they turned 75, or 80, but developed dementia and didn’t do it?
When, I suppose depends what is more important to you, that you have access to them for as long as you want or the chance that someone might read them when your dead.
You could clearly label them 'if I'm dead please do not read' most decent people would respect that I think, but then maybe nosy buggers might be more inclined to read them.
For me it was more important my children never read them, there's a lot that happened in my teenage years I don't want them to know so I got rid of them. I have other ways of remembering those times.

I think there could be a good market for a self destructing box that is set to burn/shred/dissolve the contents after 3 months unless you reset it in time.
You might want to keep things for your own memories but not intend others to see them - nor expect to go under a bus tomorrow and not have the chance to dispose of.

Maybe best to keep such things in a box clearly marked "To be destroyed without opening (along with my google search history)" by the person trusted with dealing with your affairs.

I do have a general issue with keeping grandparents/great grandparents letters/diaries as something of historical/family importance. If we keep doing that some poor sod is eventually going to inherit a shipping container full of old paper and be expected to look after it and pass it down to their eventual children. Where does it end?

This is it. If you don't want others to read it, you have to leave explicit instructions and fully appreciate soneone could easily ignore or destroy things.

If you write things down, you understand what you wrote is to be read. You might intend that its only for your eyes, but you can't control that, so you have to be conscious of what might happen if you died suddenly.

Indeed if you met an untimely death, your diary might hold clues about your mature death that are important to those who survive you...

I understand your perspectives op, but it's raw, primary source material for either history or intelligence gathering ect, depending on the person, e.g. Civil service, defense, military ect

Wouldn't it be easy to put in one's will : "There's a box of personal letters in X location that I would like to remain unread & be destroyed after my death"?

I mean, I know MNers are nosy Cunts, but honestly, that would be a helluva dying wish to ignore and an Executor would be obliged to try to make sure it was fulfilled, too.

My mother made many stipulations in her will but not "You can't read my diaries or letters." I think I'm in the clear on that one.

Depends on what type of letters you are talking about. If they are very personal, no. I intend to burn my letters and diaries before I die if I can.

You had WhatsApp at 15?! That wasn't even a thing when I was 15! Are you only 20?!

Reading through my late mum's letters and diaries after her death was lovely in many ways. She was a devout diary & letter keeper since childhood in the 1940's. Lots of it was a real snapshot of her life over the years & brought her memory back to life.
However there were a couple of things that I know she wouldn't have wanted to share, one very significant deep secret (which I never told her I had already discovered) & one diary entry that I found that was very upsetting to me about my disabled son.
I destroyed them all after her death & for me I think that was the right thing to do

I think privacy should still be respected after someone has died.
If someone has written a diary about historical events, hoping for it to be passed on that's fine but I am sure most people would cringe at the thought of their personal correspondence being read.
Personally I don't hold on to anything like that.

This thread reminds me of the memes out there about having a friend who can delete your internet history when you die.
I am a very private person. I don't write in a diary or a journal. I don't take selfies and point blank refuse to let anyone take photos of me. I have been to family weddings where I managed to evade the photos. There are no photos of me in existence for at least the past 15 years (save CCTV, and a few cop shop mug shots).
When I die, I want to slip into nothingness... no remnant of me.

As a genealogist I'm horrified at the idea of throwing away letters. They are SO important to the generations to come and give a real sense of personality beyond the basics of born, married, died.

And on a similar theme, if you have old photos kicking around, please please please write on the back the names of the people and a date. The number of times I've seen a photo either with nothing on the back, or with "Dad" written on it.

@RavenclawDiadem

As a genealogist I'm horrified at the idea of throwing away letters. They are SO important to the generations to come and give a real sense of personality beyond the basics of born, married, died.

And on a similar theme, if you have old photos kicking around, please please please write on the back the names of the people and a date. The number of times I've seen a photo either with nothing on the back, or with "Dad" written on it.

I have old family photos which my parents know who is who but i dont. I have made a point of trying to get the details.

My grandfather died 2 years ago. He was in his mid 90s.

He had spent many years putting together a book of things that were important about him and that he wanted his sons and grandchildren to know about.

He had two sons, only one had children (of which i am) and im the only one who has had a single child. So it will all eventually go to him.

Im trying to write up everything i know about the family into something meaningful.

I do think if there's something you really don't want to be passed on or gone through, you do need to think about what you do with it, because one way or another your effects will be sorted through once you are gone.

The idea of privacy after your death, is perhaps somewhat naive.

Plenty of people have weird ideas about privacy. FIL was horrified that anyone can look up his birth on Ancestry, and work out his parents weren't married at the time. Because births, marriages and deaths are all public. And wills.

I shredded 70+ years worth of my mum's letters and cards a couple of weeks ago. I didn't read them - didn't have time, even if I'd wanted to, but I didn't want to - they're too personal. I'm trained in GDPR and would never delve into someone's online records, so why should I read their letters? It's an act of kindness to protect someone's privacy by shredding their letters without reading them, and the only responsible thing to do, unless you've been given instructions to the contrary.

I've got teenage diaries stashed away. It turns out that what I thought were profound insights into my world are mainly gibberish 25+ years later. Likewise for the letters sent to cousins and friends.
The existance of them is a piece of social history in itself. Growing up in a era where technology was developing, I didn't have email access until university at the millenium. Email began to take over from post, then social media not many years later.

There's nothing terribly informative or embarrasing in them and I'd have no issue with them being read.

The personal ones are from when I got in touch with and established contact with my father. Again, it's a bit of history in the face of social change. To my DCs, marriage or not before children is a non-issue, but it was a major factor in my family circumstances and the dying days of that era and the way my family responded.

There is a letter that turned up in an elderly relative's possessions that was known of, and it was a post-WW2 account of a relative who died in a POW camp. He and his friend had a pact that if one survived, the other would write to his family, and it was honoured. DM recognised what it was and knew the nature of the letter so got me to read it, and we both sobbed for the young relative who lived and died in brutal circumstances that we never had the chance to know. That letter deserves to be read, and that history kept alive and kept personal and I hope I can find it again in due time to keep that legacy going. Since reading that letter nearly 2 decades ago, I've thought of him during the silences. He was deprived of his own direct descendents, but that letter has kept a ghost of his existance and personality alive in memory 80 odd years after he died.

YABU. They are are fascinating historical and genealogical record.