* Illegitimate Child - 'Unknown' spouse of mother.

[rodit]

I have the death certificate for a child born to a single mother. There is no father named. She later married and had another family.
However, on the diagram of her family there is an empty box against her, representing 'Unknown' partner, before her legal husband.
I would like the son to be shown directly under his mother.
How can I remove this blank box? In the Focus window it has no record to delete.
Regards

Roger

[tatewise]

Roger, that is known 'feature' of FH Diagrams for a single-parent family.
There is no simple workaround for it, but see Deleting unknown or empty spouse box (6697).
See To not have blank or 'unknown' boxes in diagrams (6181) which led to Wish List Ref 517 Option to Omit Blank Boxes in Diagrams when only one parent that you can Vote for.

[rodit]

Thanks Mike. It looks as if I have got caught because she has the second husband.
I cannot delete the Unknown spouse as there is no Record in either the Record list, or Focus.
I have added my vote to the Wish list which, I notice, is 4 years old. I know that I have another single mother where the child is directly under her, but she did not later marry. Now I know why there is the anomaly.

Thanks again

Roger

[philmcleod]

I have a similar problem, but it seems to only occur when the illegitimate children are added after the mother is already entered with a husband the system needs a spouse as children cannot be added to a single parent.
However if the parent is added after the child, by working backwards from a single name on a birth certificate it does not create a spouse or empty box.
Any comments on this anomaly

[tatewise]

Phil, checkout the links I gave earlier.
It is not the order of entry, but the number of Family records involved that matters.
Spouses/Parents and Children can only be linked via a Family record and not directly to an Individual record.

If there is only one Family record linking one Parent and one or more Children then no empty Proxy Spouse box is displayed, and the Child box(es) descend from that Parent box.

As soon as a second Family record is involved, because the lone Parent has another partnership/marriage, then the empty Proxy Spouse box appears so that any Child boxes can descend from the the appropriate partnership/marriage = link to make it clear which Family they are related to.

[TonyF]

Roger - if in your diagram you make the blank box hidden then the illegitimate child is displayed immediately below the mother and the blank box no longer appears.

Tony

[tatewise]

Tony, I think you are working with a different scenario, where you have created an empty Spouse record. Then you are correct that hiding that empty box will place the illegitimate Child under the remaining Parent. Which is exactly what happens when there is no Spouse record at all. The problems arise when a second Family exists, e.g. the single Parent marries another person who is NOT a parent of the illegitimate Child. Then if you Hide the empty Spouse box the illegitimate Child is also Hidden.

The problem scenario is identified by double-clicking the empty Spouse Box in the Diagram to open the Property Box, but since a record does not exist, instead you get a Create new record? popup message. It is that box that users wish to eliminate. If you try to Hide it, then the illegitimate Child is also Hidden as above.