Family Historian User Group

Hi

After some advice please.

I have a family where the first son was born to his mothers first husband, lets say he is Christopher Smith, for example.

His mother divorces, and marries again (EG Mr Jones and has four subsequent 'Jones' children.

Christopher 'Smith' shows as Christopher Jones in subsequent records (and still is), so he's obviously 'adopted'? by his stepfather.

What is the best way to record this in FH?

Thanks
Neil

See how_to:recording_children_with_foster_adoptive_parents|> Recording Children with Foster/Adoptive Parents.

If you decide to add Christopher Smith as a child of Mr Jones with the adopted relationship, and the Adoption Event, check how Reports and Diagrams that you use are presented. You may get duplicated Individual coloured ribbons in Diagrams for Christopher's double role in the families.

Thank you Mike

That is exactly what I needed and I've implemented it on the individual concerned.

Neil

If a mother re-marries, her new husband is not automatically the adopted father of children from her first marriage unless her new husband legally adopts them (as I know to my cost). The children from the first marriage may use the surname of the second husband, and might even formally "adopt" this surname via a deed poll. There is no legal requirement for a child of the first marriage to use the surname of the new husband, but the use of that name might be encouraged to avoid embarrasing or awkward questions, or simply for convenience. The second husband is therefore simply a step-father if he has not gone through the legal adoption process. Adoption law is a nightmare.

Yes, the child parent relationship options include adopted, foster, step, etc...
Or you don't even have to record the child against their mother's later husbands.

Just as an aside, If someone starts using a new name, I tend to add a New Name fact attribute, just to record it happened, so my narrative reports say something like. "After his Mothers re-marriage in 1834 he was known as Jones rather than Smith.

I have a complex situation where an Illegitimate son was born during a period of divorce. The couple then remarried and the husband adopted her Illegitimate son.

When viewing the mother's descendent diagram, she has two boxes with her name: "Name" and "Name [2]" with a horizontal zigzag line connecting them. Her son is presented twice as "Same Name" under each Mother with a horizontal downward curved line linking his two boxes.

I'm wondering if caused this with redundant relationships or linking of facts, or if this is just the way it is in this situation.

Here is how I have set up this family:

*I have the mother with two spouses, the first one married twice, the second never married.

*I have the son born to the never married spouse x mother. Then I have an adoption event for the son with new family being the twice married spouse x mother, and "adopted by husband" selected.

*I also have the child listed as a son of the twice married husband and mother.

*I have the Adoptive twice married husband and the wife mother as witnesses.

I tried it again, this time following the instructions you provided with the Knowledge Base link. I started from scratch, eliminating the witness links and following your advice to avoid using the Adoptive Event link to a Parents family. I also made sure the child's All tab had the parents sorted correctly.

I had trouble with assigning a relationship. I would assign the Biological Father and Mother's Relationship as "Birth" , but everytime I would try to set the Twice Married Husbands Rel. to "Adopted", it would change the Mother's to "Adopted" as well.

Either way, the Mother's relationship was listed, her Descendent Diagram looked the same.

The diagram is as I would expect for way you have configured the relationships and as you are not showing Spouse boxes. It would make more sense if you had a more detailed text scheme selected so it shows the Spouse for each of the boxes.

For the relationship make sure you select More Options and the specify relationship separately.

Welcome to the FHUG.

Firstly, when assigning Child Relationships try the More Options option and you can set the relationship separately for Father and Mother.

Your Descendant Diagram shows the two partnerships, and shows the Son has both partnerships as parents.
However, your Diagram has rather unconventional settings, which do not work well for these complex relationships.
(The One box per marriage, no Spouse or Fact details, and no box type colouring, all obscure the relationships.)

The Descendant Diagram with default Installation Settings slightly modified to show both Marriages and Divorce is:
Or with One box per marriage is:

Thank you Mike and Jane. Being a novice, I hadn't noticed there was a "more options" when setting relationship to a child.

I'm using the trial version and I've been tinkering a lot with the settings. Even after resetting the settings to where each spouse had a box, I still couldn't duplicate your screenshots. Mother was still being duplicated even with the spouses boxes showing.

So, I restored the factory settings. That helped a lot. I would like to configure the box text so that all marriages are shown in a compact form without notes, like you have in your screenshot. I'd like to also have the adoption date. That would really clarify the relationship when viewing in the diagram. Did you create a new custom setting to make it appear that way? I'm not able to find it in Diagram>Options>Text

Also, in your screenshot where there is one box per spouse, how did you show spouse name? Mine looks like this:

I suspect you have used Diagram > Options and on each tab clicked Installation Settings.

Which Diagram > Options > Text tab Text Scheme are you using, I suspect All Events and Attributes?
Although that conveniently lists all Facts, unfortunately it does not name Spouses.
So it will need to be customised to do that as follows.

In the Diagram > Options > Text tab select the All Events and Attributes scheme.
Click the Clone button on the right, and click OK, to create a (custom) copy you can edit.
(BTW: Always do this when customising Text Schemes so the default version is still available.)
Now select the Birth, Marr, Death scheme and click the Edit button.
In the Edit Text Scheme dialogue, on the right, select the Spouse Name if 'One Box Per Marriage' item.
Now click the Copy button lower right next to the black Move Down arrow.
Click Cancel lower left, and select All Events and Attributes (custom) and click Edit.
In the Edit Text Scheme dialogue, click the Paste button lower right next to the X Delete button.
That should insert a copy of the Spouse Name if 'One Box Per Marriage' item.
Select it and use the black Move Up black arrow to move it above <all events & attributes>.
Click OK twice, and now with One box per marriage the Spouse name will be shown.

The way this Text Scheme displays Facts cannot be customised, so it is all or nothing.
To gain fine control over how each Fact is displayed needs a different Text Scheme and rather more customisation.
If you are interested, then we can cover that, but may get a little technical for a novice.

Using your instructions as a template, I was almost able to do what I wanted, which was to show Birth, Adoption, Marr 1, Marr 2, Div, Death.

As you can see both marriage dates are the same. I did this by simply duplicating the Marriage line. So, that's not a big surpise. Obviously, I need to edit something so that it gives the 2nd marriage date.

Perhaps I should post this as a new question. Is there a way to get both marriages to appear in the marriage summary section, as shown in the picture below?

The short answer to your last question is 'NO'.
The only way to achieve that would be to link the Twice Married Husband to the Mother twice; once before and once after the Unmarried Father. The there would be three couples in the Focus Window with one Marriage event for each of the two partnerships with the Twice Married Husband.

Your Diagram name problem is governed by the Name Remarriage item in the Edit Text Scheme dialogue.
i.e. That affects the pink background boxes.

Some Text Schemes such as Birth, Marr, Death have a Template of (=GetContextInfo(DGM_MARR_INSTANCE)) which only shows the instance number in parentheses.

Others have a Template of %INDI.NAME:FULL% (=GetContextInfo(DGM_MARR_INSTANCE)) which includes the Name and yet others have none at all.

Thanks Mike. I may play around with that some more to see which is best, whether to link him twice or not.

Also, I can see by your answer that you saw my question before I edited it. The main problem I'm having now is that I wasn't able to show both dates of marriage in the Diagram as I thought. Instead I'm showing the first marriage date twice. How do I show the second marriage date?

You need to modify the Template to use the 2nd instance of the Marriage.
e.g.
Marr: %CUR~FAMS>MARR[2].DATE:COMPACT% in %CUR~FAMS>MARR[2].PLAC:TIDY%

There are various instance options as explained in how_to:understanding_data_references|> Understanding Data References under Indices.

Thanks a ton. That did the trick!

One last thing for now. What is the general concensus on which surname to make the primary for children adopted early in life? Is it frowned upon to use the adopted surname the primary for use in Reports or Trees which will be shared?

The preferred genealogical standard is to record the birth name as the Primary Name.
However, you can use the Make Primary button in the more (+)... names dialogue to swap adoptive name with birth name temporarily while producing a Report or Tree to be shared, and then swap back.