Family Historian User Group

When using Ancestral Sources to add census entries I sometimes come across a previously undiscovered grandchild living with grandparents. At the moment I add them in AS as an unrelated individual (although mark them as a grandson/daughter in the census details). At this stage I may not know who their parents are.

I'm reluctant to break off at this point to go and try to discover which family they belong to.

This of course leaves them as a 'floating' person in FH, which I then have to try and remember for when I eventually find out what family they are in. I've often found that I've entered them again and ended up with duplicate people.

How do others deal with this situation?

ID:6749

I usually create a temporary parent for them as child of the Head of Household in AS, named something like : - 'parent of (name of child) /family name/' and then add the Grandchild to that parent.  This saves breaking off to go and look at the FH file or project and perhaps having to indulge in some other research as well.  
Once I have done the census entry, I will start to look for an appropriate birth etc.  If I can identify the parent, and they are already in my tree, I'll merge the the two using the Edit > Merge/Compare Records command in FH.  

Yes, this question crops regularly.

The answer is usually as suggested above.
i.e.
Create a dummy child of grandparents, and add grandchild to that dummy person.
Then when further research reveals the family details, either complete the dummy entry, or amalgamate with an existing entry.
Whether the dummy child is male or female can often be deduced from the surnames of the grandparents and grandchild.
If the same then male (son), else female (daughter).

tatewise said:

Whether the dummy child is male or female can often be deduced from the surnames of the grandparents and grandchild.
If the same then male (son), else female (daughter).

I have found that's a dangerous assumption. I have several cases where a grandchild was living with grandparents because the parent (1.e. the child of the grandparents) was an unmarried woman who was working as a servant elsewhere and could not bring up the child herself. The illegitimate child was brought up with his/her mother's surname.

I assume that you mean create the dummy Parent of the grandchild in FH, and add the grandchild to that parent, so that when FH is saved, AS will have to be reloaded and the grandchild will then appear in the list of people and can be added to the census details?

As and when the correct parent is found either the dummy parent can be renamed, or the child moved to the correct family.

You can create the dummy parent in AS, just don't add them to the census

Thanks to everyone - most helpful. [smile]