Journals make family secrets public.

Many researchers have studied detailed family trees to trace disease-causing genes as they are passed from generation to generation. The diagrams can reveal incest, mistaken paternity, and other skeletons in a family's past. A study in the June 10 Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that publication of such genealogies can violate patient confidentiality 

Ethicist Jeffrey R. Botkin of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and his colleagues surveyed 177 investigators regarding the publication of genealogies. They found that 131 did not obtain written consent for such publication and 61 researchers said they did not tell participants that their family tree would be included in a scientific article.

Once the paper appears in a scientific journal, "there may be breaches of privacy," Botkin says. He recalls a family feud after a young Catholic woman found out about her aunt's abortions.

Some scientists, on the other hand, seem well aware of privacy problems caused by the publication of family trees. Thirty-two of the researchers reported that they had altered the published genealogies in order to protect families. Only 14, however, had reported the alterations to the journal's become pancreatic, says Melton.