Family Historian User Group

I added an adopted parent (man adopted a child)and that parent has become a relative i.e. grandfather, great gf of succeeding generations. Can this be changed, as he is not a blood relative of anyone in the tree? His wife is not in the tree either.
Thanks

ID:6275

Just a thought but surely if I adopt a child I become a relative of future generations in the same way that a spouse becomes a relative (aunt/uncle/cousin as well as parent) through marriage? To my way of thinking you can become a relative through a legal process (such as a father-in-law, for example), whether it be marriage or adoption just as much as through blood ties.

Now I realise that this does not answer your question. I don't know if there is a way of indicating different sorts of relationships except by showing the parent(s) as associated persons rather than parents. You could then use the note fields to indicate the nature of the relationship and why you have shown it in that way.

That makes sense, I guess I'm just getting too picky.[rolleyes]

You can set the relationship to parent from the focus window.
Right click on the child to choose relationship to parent -adopted, birth, de facto, foster, illegitimate, lds sealing, step.
When doing diagrams etc you will need to choose which parents eg birth or adopted, but you may combine them to make a chart.

Gerry Newnham said:
Just a thought but surely if I adopt a child I become a relative of future generations in the same way that a spouse becomes a relative (aunt/uncle/cousin as well as parent) through marriage? To my way of thinking you can become a relative through a legal process (such as a father-in-law, for example), whether it be marriage or adoption just as much as through blood ties.

Something about Gerry's answer bothers me. The logic is correct re spouses, Aunts, Uncles etc but if we were to consider a legal, ie adoptive, parent as a relative to later generations then surely we run the risk of corrupting later generations genealogy when they look backwards through our trees.
I'm not expressing myself very well here but perhaps my concern is that the ancestors of the adoptive parent may be researched in the future as if they are blood ancestors if no clear distinction is made.
Does that make sense?
Dagwood  

Dagwood,

You have hit the nail on the head! The fundamental questions are whether you are researching only your blood relatives/ancestors or all relatives and, if you are researching all relatives then, does this include only relatives by marriage?

I have one quite distant relative by adoption (although the circumstances are a bit unusual). Should I ignore them or include them as relatives or devise some intermediate form or relationship. Currently they are included as a relative on the basis that family isn't just those related to me through a common ancestor. If I had a cousin who was adopted then I would regard his adoptive parents as my relatives just as much as his natural parents. Equally if a sibling adopted a child I would regard that child and any children they might have as related to me.

However, I can see that others might take a different view. There probably isn't a definitive answer to this one and everyone needs to ponder what they would do in such circumstances.

Gerry

Gerry Newnham said:
Dagwood,

........ There probably isn't a definitive answer to this one and everyone needs to ponder what they would do in such circumstances.

Gerry

I think that's absolutely right Gerry. As long as any record we keep that shows the correct relationship, but in so doing does not offend or reveal publicly any adoption or other family 'secret', then I guess it's up to each person to record as they wish.
Dagwood