Genealogy Chat

When I put both parents on the tree the system shows them as married. How do I show parents when they were never married or not married to each other?

Maybe the only way is to put the fact in the notes

I don't think the system mentions anything about people being 'married'......................they are shown on one's tree as the parents of the child

I have this on my tree. The parents do show up as being married. I don't think there is a way of avoiding that. I did what Shirley suggested and added a note.

I agree with Reggie. The tree doesn't imply that the parents are married. You just put in both names of the parents of the child. If the child is illegitimate then put in the mother's name and put "Unknown" in the place for father's name.

EDIT - Graham, can you tell me where it says that the parents that you put in are married?

Kath. x

If you know who both parents were and you put their names on your tree the parents appear as being married even if they weren't. It is possible for a child to be illegitimate and still know the fathers name.

If you mean that on the tree the parents will show up with "=" between them that only shows that they were the parents of the child. It doesn't say anywhere that they are married.

You should only put in a name of a father if you are sure of the father's name. If the child is illegitimate but both parents go to register the birth the birth is often registered in both the mother's maiden name and the father's surname. If only the mother goes to the register office and she is not married then only her name can be put on the register.

I think things may be different nowadays but that was certainly how it was in the past. It depends on what era you are talking about.

In the past an illegitimate child was often given his or her father's surname as a middle name, or the father may have been named on the baptism record.

Kath. x

I don't know about the OPs tree, but on my tree I have people who weren't married who had kids. I knew who the parents were. I put those parents on the tree. When I click on one of the parents on the tree and view the panel with details of that parent it says that that person was married to the other parent. Although there are no dates recorded for the wedding (since I didn't input anything).
I agree you should only put people on your tree that you definitely know should be there.

Graham is correct about the panel expecting/implying that one parent was married to the other parent of the child.

I put "NOT MARRIED" in the box for place of marriage.

In each case the parents were married but also had children outside of their marriages. I feel dishonest showing the names of my father and my husband's father when they come up as having been married to our mothers. We are both bastards and I would like to be able to reflect that on the family tree. At least now I know it's not my mistake but a problem with the programming. Thank you everyone for your replies.
I do not want to put NOT MARRIED as the parents were married, just not to each other.

The presence of a slot for marriage does NOT imply there was a marriage.

If you are going to complain about there being a slot for marriage when there may not be a marriage, then you ought to complain about there being a baptism slot.

You could also say there shouldn't be a death slot for those entries in the tree who are living.

Personally I put a comment in the Relationship Notes to detail any irregularities in parenthood

(Reworded version of earlier post)

In common with other web trees which are provided for free, you get the basic tools to allow you to record your tree.

No big deal in my view, so can't loose any sleep.

If you must reflect other types of relationship, then invest in a commercial tree program. For example FTM allows you to an alternative type and status for parent / child and for couple relationships.

This, coupled with the ability to allow multiple relationships would also allow you to record both adopted and biological parents at the same time.

Thank you InspectorGreenPen, I will certainly look into that as our families have a lot of adoption going on.