* Cohabiting ex-spouses

[Peter Collier]

I have a couple in my tree who were married, had children and then divorced. The couple were subsequently reunited and lived together as an unmarried couple, until ultimately one of them died.

How best to record this in FH so that the relationships appear correctly in reports? If I correctly set the marriage status to divorced,would it not obscure that they later lived together as an unmarried couple for many years(?). Conversely, setting it to unmarried couple could mask the marriage and/or divorce?

Would you set each person as the other person's second spouse, and mark the first relationship as divorced and the second as unmarried?

[tatewise]

First of all don't set Marriage Status to Divorced, but use the Divorced Event instead, as that records where and when, with the option of citing the divorce papers as a Source.

If any other events/facts can be recorded subsequent to the Divorce, then in Reports that would indicate the reconciliation.

If there were a significant time lapse between Divorce and reconciliation, then a second relationship as you suggest would be a good idea with its Status set to Unmarried Couple, but add some Notes to explain that unusual scenario. You may have to modify some Fact Sentences to get the wording right in Narrative Reports.

Similar multiple relationships have been discussed a while ago where the same Spouses remarry, and multiple Family relationships were a valid solution. Consider Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for instance.