Research your family tree and you are virtually guaranteed to turn up a dark secret, Salt Lake City genealogist Judy Jones says.
The Church of the Latter Day Saints researcher is visiting New Zealand for three weeks and spoke in Dunedin last night.
Mrs Jones, who works at FamilySearch at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, told the Otago Daily Times discovering unpleasant things was part of the everyone's experience of family research.
People should not feel ashamed by any ancestor's actions, as people were responsible for their own actions.
The trip was her third to New Zealand and this time Mrs Jones had registered high levels of interest from Maori, particularly from those who had lost touch with their tribal origins.
The church was processing historic Maori Land Court documents to aid such research.
Her church supported genealogy research because of its belief in the "eternal family", but did not expect everyone to research for religious reasons.
Her most rewarding work was with Utah State Prison prisoners, for some of whom finding out their history had turned around their lives. It gave them greater perspective on their own troubles, she said.
