Family Historian User Group

Hello

This is probably (hopefully) something that does not occur very often -- and has only occur 2 times that I am aware of in my family tree of 10K+ people and 5000+ Families. I have only been using FH for about 5 weeks.

Woman had 5 marriages, marriage #1 and #3 were to same man.
Not sure if there is a setting to change this but in the focus screen only #1 shows up in the focus screen.
This may be working as designed but certainly is misleading -- see screenshots below

There are two different situations here. The first is where one family have two marriages, e.g. a religious ceremony not recognized by the state and a separate civil marriage. The second is where the two spouses end the marriage and subsequently remarry. In this latter case, two separate families are created, and FH displays the same partners twice, as you expected.

This is illustrated from the Sample Project below, where I have added Julia Amanda FISH as a new spouse to Anthony Edward MUNRO, so creating a second family. I suspect you just have one family with two marriages, so try creating a second spouse (Add > Spouse...) for one of the partners, linking to the other as an existing record.

Also check the Records Window to see how many families are listed. Families are hidden by default (for reasons that escape most users...), so Tools > Preferences > Records Window, and set to either Hide if none or Always show, according to your personal preference.

As an aside, families are always displayed as ... of Husband and Wife, so I don't think it is possible to sort them by the wife's name without creating additional custom columns for the separate spouses. If somebody else knows differently, I'm sure they'll chip in...

To add to Mark's advice, in the property box for Mabel, you should see Eldon twice. I've shown how it appears for Mark's example. If they appear in the wrong order in the focus window you can change the order using the arrows I've indicated.

jelv wrote: ↑

22 Feb 2023 14:44

To add to Mark's advice, in the property box for Mabel, you should see Eldon twice. I've shown how it appears for Mark's example. If they appear in the wrong order in the focus window you can change the order using the arrows I've indicated.


Remarriage.png

Yes that was part of it -- I need to add both EJB to MVS "Partner/Spouses" and reorder -- that makes since but since I have not encounter this scenario and missed that part.

Thank you both
Kevin

Mark1834 wrote: ↑

22 Feb 2023 14:17

There are two different situations here. The first is where one family have two marriages, e.g. a religious ceremony not recognized by the state and a separate civil marriage. The second is where the two spouses end the marriage and subsequently remarry. In this latter case, two separate families are created, and FH displays the same partners twice, as you expected.

Yes I did understand different types of "marriage" and that will be something I need to examine coming from other software they may be some inconsistencies that I need to fix. Also -- thank you for mention about preferences.

Kevin

On a related note -- does any have tips (queries etc) that would find where a spouse is missing as in my 2nd marriage example? (or even if it was the only marriage) -- so if there are marriage facts but no family?
(I think that is the correct way to say it)

It is not possible to have Marriage Event facts without a Family record because Marriage (and Divorce, etc) are Family facts that can only exist in a Family record.
Yes, they appear in the Facts tab of an Individual Property Box but they have a red bullet on the left which tells you they are in the Family record shared by the Individual spouses.
So for any single Marriage, there must be a Spouse tab.

The double Marriage case is where there are two Marriage Event facts in the same Family record.
i.e. There are more Marriage Event facts than Spouse tabs.
That can be detected with a Family type of Query that detects %FAM.MARR[2]% exists.
i.e. Two instances of a Marriage Event in one Family record.