Family Historian User Group

I have come across a child born to a mother before she subsequently married another and went on to have two more children with her husband. The father is unknown and I'm not sure if the child was adopted or not but was not part of the main family only meeting up 40 years later. I'm not sure of the best way to record this.
Do I set up a "dummy" first partnership and add the child to this? Or add to the actual marriage with notes etc,?
How have others handled this please. I suspect it is not uncommon. Any suggestions?

I'd add another 'spouse' tab in the Property box and add the child to that. For the 'partner' you have two choices: don't add a record at all, or add a record for an un-named person.

In my sister's case (she is happy for me to use her as an example) I've added a record for an un-named person as tracking them down by DNA is feasible (and underway). In examples further back in my tree where it's unlikely that I'll ever be able to identify the 'partner', I don't add a record.

You might want to consider Empty boxes on a diagram (20282) when deciding what solution to adopt, if you use diagrams a lot.

If this happens with relatively recent events (no pun intended), ensure that you take care to set the appropriate Living and Private flags appropriately, and pay attention to how the information is recorded in Reports. For example, if the child is not public knowledge and could be sensitive, you can hide them and/or the dummy parent placeholder record (if created) by marking them as private, but this does NOT automatically hide all reference to the additional family for the parent.

In the 'new' Spouse tab partnership you will need to use the small black arrows to move this 'new' tab before the married partnership Spouse tab.

Also, in the 'new' Spouse tab set the Status to 'Never Married' so that in Reports it does not say they were married.

See the FHUG Knowledge Base Recording Children for Multiple Partnerships that explains the process.

Thanks folks. I realise the sensitivity of this, especially as both the mother and son are still alive, so I'm tempted to leave things as they are! Talk about walking on eggs! But that's what makes this genealogy fascinating so long as you are aware of the pitfalls!