A DEBATE on Radio Five this week focused on the incredible growth in the popularity of genealogy - the study of family trees. What drew our interest was the heavy reliance placed upon local newspaper reports of inquests for shedding a little light on the bald facts of an ancestor's date of birth, marriage and death.

More than one caller had found out great detail of a relative who had met an untimely end, such as suicide, by accident, or even as a victim of crime, by trawling through the columns of the local newspaper for an inquest report. One lady recounted how discovering details of a grandparent's suicide had helped fill in many details of his life and provided solace as it answered many questions.

However, this service to future generations will surely be diminished as society in general and therefore newspapers in particular take a different view on what is or what is not acceptable to publish.

This newspaper, for example, now chooses to limit its report of inquests into suicide to simply the name, address and recording of the verdict unless there are exceptional circumstances. Surviving relatives face enough trauma on the occasion of the death; they then have to relive the pain in the coroner's court and a recounting of the facts in print is a third attack on their emotions.

Our predecessors, as journalists and readers, were far less squeamish. The Victorians and Edwardians liked to read every last detail, gory and painful, in a coroner's court. A Craven Herald report in 1904 into an inquest into the death of an Eastby mother who drowned her child and then drank bleach to kill herself occupied column after column of closely-typed script. It was lapped up by the public. Even up until 20 years ago it was considered normal to cover inquests fully but there has been a slow change in attitude and the feelings of the bereaved have come more to the fore.

Future genealogists may regret the change in attitude and the blanks left in their family history books but perhaps this is one change for the better.