* Adoption

[neil40]

Wondering if I've done something wrong.
A recent 'revelation' came to light, where I found my Uncle had an affair with a married lady, which led to a child.
My Uncle was married, as was the lady, and my Uncle and his wife offered to adopt the child. The lady refused, and he was adopted by the mother and her husband.
I've followed https://fhug.org.uk/kb/kb-article/recor ... e-parents/ I believe, with parents in the correct order on the 'All' tab. Child is added to both the 'natural' and 'adoptive' parents, with 'a' added to the latter in 'Rel'
However, when I add an adoption event to the child, added a date and place, then picked the family that adpoted him, and 'Husband'
But, the sentence, whose structure is

Code: Select all

{individual} was adopted <by {role=adoptive father,adoptive mother,adoptive parent}> {date} {place} {age}

just says "He was adopted in Q2 1944 in Bradford, Yorkshire, England.
Thanks.

[LornaCraig]

That’s interesting. I think the addition of the extra fields (for the family and selection of parent) for the adoption fact in the facts tab of the Property box must be fairly new. I don’t remember seeing them before. It looks as if CP have forgotten to incorporate those details in the default sentence template (if that was their intention).

The sentence template is still set up to incorporate witness roles, and if you explicitly add the adopting father in that role the sentence displays correctly. Perhaps CP intended the extra fields for the adoption fact to be a ‘shortcut’ to adding witness roles, but it doesn’t do that.

I suggest you report this to CP. Meanwhile you can edit the sentence for this particular individual so that it displays what you want.

[tatewise]

Neil, exactly what does the Fact Witness popup dialogue say for the Adoption Event?
Is the adoptive 'husband' Individual record listed under Witness and is Adoptive Father listed under Role?

It is crucial that the Role name used matches the Adoption Event definition of Role names, otherwise they won't get used by the Sentence Template codes. (BTW: upper/lower case is not important.)

I think what Lorna is referring to is the Role names Birth Father, Birth Mother, Birth Parent do not appear in the Sentence Template, but I'm not sure how they would be used.

[LornaCraig]

Mike, the point is that Neil has not set up any witness role, because he didn't think he needed to. He simply completed the Family: and By: fields in the facts tab of the Property box and assumed that would produce the required result. It doesn't, because it doesn't create a witness role. (And incidentally it also seems to be independent of the Rel settings in the Focus window). So what are those extra fields for? They don't seem to produce any output anywhere. As I said in my previous reply, I don't remember seeing those fields before so they might be a fairly new additon, but I may be wrong.

[tatewise]

Ah! You are talking about the All tab, Adoption fact, Parents family entry that the Knowledge Base says "is best avoided".
Despite being a longstanding GEDCOM feature, FH has never really supported it other than in the All tab display, which is effectively what the Knowledge Base says for FH V5 to V6 and V7 is no different.

It might be possible to incorporate those details by customising the Sentence Template somehow.

My advice is to forget about the All tab feature and focus on the Fact Witnesses as identified in the Adoption Event definition.

Unfortunately, the Knowledge Base has not been updated for the FH V7 new Adoption event Fact Witness Roles.

[LornaCraig]

No, Neil and I are both talking about the Facts tab.

adoption.jpg (31.59 KiB) Viewed 1731 times

[tatewise]

Wow! I had not spotted that. It is new.
It has brought the All tab features onto the Facts tab but I'm not sure the support extends much further.

[neil40]

No, Neil and I are both talking about the Facts tab.


adoption.jpg

Yes, exactly that. I was expecting that filling those in would update the sentence, otherwise, as you say elsewhere, what are those selections achieving.
I will report it to CP.

[neil40]

Neil, exactly what does the Fact Witness popup dialogue say for the Adoption Event?
Is the adoptive 'husband' Individual record listed under Witness and is Adoptive Father listed under Role?

It is crucial that the Role name used matches the Adoption Event definition of Role names, otherwise they won't get used by the Sentence Template codes. (BTW: upper/lower case is not important.)

I think what Lorna is referring to is the Role names Birth Father, Birth Mother, Birth Parent do not appear in the Sentence Template, but I'm not sure how they would be used.

As Lorna said, I didn't fill any witnesses, looking at the Fact tab I expected adding "Family:" and "by:" to update the sentence.
I've never faced an adoption fact before, so was unaware of those not being there before (as most seem to say!)

[neil40]

Adding witnesses updates the sentence as one might expect. Not quite as expected.
If I add witnesses of adoptive father and birth mother only adoptive father is shown in the sentence, but change birth mother to adoptive mother and they both show.
Is that a flaw.
The son told me that his mother and her husband adopted him after she refused the birth father to do so, so is correct that the sentence should only say adoptive father, if I add a witness of Birth mother. If so, what's the point of adding the Birth Mother as a witness?!

Adoption sentence.jpg (54.91 KiB) Viewed 1697 times

[neil40]

Ah, spotted it, it says 'Her son David.....'
And Calico Pie's reply:

The "Family" and "by" fields are not new. They have been there for a very long time. These fields allow the adoptive parent details to be stored as original standard GEDCOM fields. There is no harm in using them, and arguably some benefit. However, there is also a completely different way of recording the adoptive parents, which is possibly better and certainly more consistent with the way that additional associated people are now normally linked to events - and that is to record them as witnesses, using the Witness window. To do that, select the Adoption event and click the Witnesses button on the toolbar below. In the Witnesses window, click the 'Add' button and add the adoptive father with role "Adoptive Father" and the adoptive mother, with role "Adoptive Mother". The default sentence template for the Adoption event, assumes that you will handle the adoptive parents this way. Consequently you will see this information appearing in sentences, if you take this approach. If however you want to persist with the current approach, you will need to modify the sentence template for the Adoption event.

[LornaCraig]

Well I think CP have just created confusion by adding those fields to the Facts tab instead of keeping them hidden on the All tab. What was the purpose? The user naturally thinks that anything entered on the Facts tab will be included in Reports (both narrative and non-narrative).

I can see that CP might want to encourage the use of those fields for reasons of gedgom compliance, but they have no use withinin FH because they don't appear in any output (as far as I can see). So there are three ways of recording adoptive relationships:

1. In the fields which now show on the Facts tab (previously only on the All tab)
2. By creating witness roles.
3. By using the 'Rel' field in the Focus Window.

These three are independent of each other. How is the user (especially a new user) supposed to know that?

[tatewise]

It seems that CP are correct. Those Facts tab fields have been there for a very long time.
They are present in FH V6.2.7 but none of us recalls seeing them
Their main purpose seems to be for 100% GEDCOM compliance and little more.
However, I agree with Lorna that having three mechanisms is confusing.

[neil40]

Subsequent question.
As I am unaware if the family of my Uncle know about this child (their half brother), until I know that they do, I would hate to let any report or diagram inadvertantly show this person (and his adoptive parents).
What is the best/recommended way to hide the 3 people involved from output?

[tatewise]

Where are you sending the 'output'?
If you don't send the Diagrams or Reports to anyone or put them on the Internet they will stay privately on your PC.
Otherwise, you will have to take care. You can add a Private Flag to the Individual Records &/or the Adoption Event, but you must still ensure the appropriate options are applied to hide the details conditioned by the flags.

[AdrianBruce]

... These three are independent of each other. How is the user (especially a new user) supposed to know that?

This has made to worry just what methods I've used in my file. And what I should be using...

So far as I can see from some experiments - Lorna's three methods are independent but not equivalent.

Method 3 (adding the adopted children on one of - automatically therefore both - the parent's Main tab) appears necessary to get the adopted children into diagrams, and to trigger their automatic appearance in the next generation in a narrative report from their parents. In other words, it's mandatory for my purposes.

Method 2 (using the Adopted event on the child and witness roles for the parents) appears to be the only way to get any mention of the adoption into the parents' narrative.

Method 1 (Adopted event using what I might call the old-fashioned GEDCOM item on the event's fact tab) won't generate anything in the parents' narrative.

So it seems to me that Methods 3 and 2 are both necessary for full-fat narratives and charts.

The only remaining problem is that the narrative report looks poor for the parents:

Screenshot 2022-09-07 203017.jpg (16.37 KiB) Viewed 1635 times

Logically I would write a single sentence that the couple adopted the children - instead it looks like it'll appear as two sentences separated by the rest of the report for the father. (Elrond, by the way, isn't in that snippet lower down as a child because I'd not done method 3 for him).

I suspect that I might end up ensuring that the note against the child's adoption event appears as part of the witness sentence for the parent - this note will probably contain suitable text to refer to both parents and will therefore mitigate against my idea that the narrative text is poor.

Have I missed anything?

[tatewise]

Adrian, my observation is that your Method 3 "adding the child to the parents" is not equivalent to Laura's point 3. "the 'Rel' field" (Relationship to Parents a=adopted) other than the child must be added to the parents in order to use the 'Rel' field.
You do not mention the 'Rel' field at all.

I've not investigated the sentence options.

[LornaCraig]

Yes, as Mike says, my method 3 refers to adding the relationship status between the child and the parents. This can be done in either of two places:

In the Focus window, right-click on a child and select Relationship to Parents. (And if you then click on More Options you can choose different relationships for the two parents, eg birth mother and adoptive father). The initial letters of the relationship are then shown in the Rel column at right hand end of the child's line.
Or
In the child's All tab, right-click on the Parents family, then Add Relationship. Again, the initial letters of the relationship(s) are shown in the Rel column in the Focus window.

But if you use the All tab method you can add any number of different (and conflicting) relationships! Not that it matters, because I don't think these relationships appear in any reports or diagrams.

So as far as I can see Method 3 is only marginally more useful than method 1, but at least it displays something in the Focus window.

Creating an adoption fact will make something appear in a report for the child, and you could put the relationship details in the fact note, but if you want the adoption to be mentioned in reports for the parents you have to create witness roles (method 2). Whether the sentences in the report look sensible is another matter....

[AdrianBruce]

Adrian, my observation is that your Method 3 "adding the child to the parents" is not equivalent to Laura's point 3. ...
You do not mention the 'Rel' field at all. ...

Whoops - sorry, I was taking that as read but I should have been clear.

[AdrianBruce]

... I don't think these relationships appear in any reports or diagrams.

So as far as I can see Method 3 is only marginally more useful than method 1, but at least it displays something in the Focus window. ...

I agree with that first sentence - unless I'm also mistaken, the relationship qualifiers (i.e. adopted, etc.) don't appear anywhere.

However, as I said above, if you use diagrams, Method 3 is crucial so I'd not refer to it as "marginally more useful"... And if you use narrative reports, it is crucial to putting the adopted child in their adoptive family. (If you don't use narrative reports or don't want the adopted child in their adoptive family in diagrams, then Method 3 doesn't add anything.).

[LornaCraig]

Adrian, I was taken it as given that the child has already been linked to the parents. Naturally that's the only way to show them in the context of that family in diagrams or reports.

I was listing three different ways in which the nature of the parent-child relationship (adopted) can be recorded.
The problem is that these three different ways put the information in three different places and have different functions:

1. Gedcom compliance but no other use in FH.
2. Appearance in reports on the parents
3. A small reminder in the Focus window.

Not only that, but it's possible to record different relationships in the three different places and FH doesn't complain!

[AdrianBruce]

Adrian, I was taken it as given that the child has already been linked to the parents. Naturally that's the only way to show them in the context of that family in diagrams or reports. ...

Oh thank goodness. I thought you were a diagram user and therefore couldn't understand how you'd relegated the effect on diagrams and reports to a "marginal" benefit. I'd incorrectly over-interpreted that linking of child to parents to be part of your Method 3 and only Method 3.

The problem is that these three different ways put the information in three different places and have different functions:
... Not only that, but it's possible to record different relationships in the three different places and FH doesn't complain!

Yes, I totally agree.

The "interesting" thing is that I'd accidentally done a more fundamental review because of my misunderstanding, and this does beg the question - if someone comes to this from outside FH and uses (say) Method 1 to document the family on that event... Isn't there a possibility that they think that's enough and so they don't then link the child to the parents in the old-fashioned way? (As I incorrectly thought was being suggested). Which again suggests that some sort of reconciliation of the adoption (and ?) data and relationships should be attempted by FH?

I'm slightly wary of the "and ?" in my phrase "some sort of reconciliation of the adoption (and ?) data and relationships". Adoption seems to be easiest because there is the separate event that can make it clear. But other types of linkage are a bit more problematic - I'm thinking in particular of describing a relationship as "step". I only link a child into a family of (usually) one birth and one step-parent if there is clear evidence that they lived together, whereas others may say that describing the relationship as "step" ought to take place whenever the surviving parent remarries. (To give a specific example - my GG-GF married three times. Strictly his second wife, my GG-GM, could be described as step-mother to the children from the first marriage, but because they never lived with my GG-GM, I haven't linked them to the 2nd marriage, never mind marked them as step. Also, the relationship between my G-GF, his siblings, and the 3rd wife, was so bad in the end that I've not linked G-GF and his siblings to the 3rd marriage at all, even though they lived with her and strictly speaking she was their step-mother - indeed, I think I describe her as such in the text. Feel free to regard that as a triumph of emotion over logic...)

[neil40]

Adrian, with Lorna's permission, I passed on her comments to CP

1. In the fields which now show on the Facts tab (previously only on the All tab)
2. By creating witness roles.
3. By using the 'Rel' field in the Focus Window.

These three are independent of each other. How is the user (especially a new user) supposed to know that?

They didn't refute this, and simply said, "Thank you for your feedback"

[LornaCraig]

Adrian wrote

....if someone comes to this from outside FH and uses (say) Method 1 to document the family on that event... Isn't there a possibility that they think that's enough and so they don't then link the child to the parents in the old-fashioned way?

Yes, I see what you mean. I would always make the family links first and record the nature of the relationship afterwards, but a new user might think that by creating the adoption event and entering the family details on the facts tab they have finished the job. (Similarly, Neil’s original problem arose because he assumed that the narrative sentence would include those family details. It doesn’t, because you have to create witness roles separately – and they can be different!)

I can see that methods 1 and 2 for recording the adoption need to be separate because some users might want to maintain Gedcom compliance but not use witness roles, while others might use witness roles but not care about Gedcom. But if you use both it would be helpful if FH checked them for compatibility.

And of course method 3, the ‘Rel’ status, is used for recording a variety of other relationships as well as adoption. So it looks as if the three methods have to be separate, but at the expense of creating confusion for new (and not so new) users.

Personally I would favour relegating the Gedcom compliance fields to the All tab. I’m sure they were not on the Facts tab years ago when I created several adoption events. After all, there are a number of other features which can be added on the All tab if you really want to use them but they are not “in your face” so they don't create confusion.

By the way, I understand your dilemma about whether to apply the term “step mother” in some situations. But in those cases it’s always clear from a diagram, or a list of births and marriages in a report, exactly what the family structure was. You needn’t record anything else because the reader can decide for themselves whether they would call it a “step” relationship in everyday language. But I think an adoptive relationship needs to be explicitly stated, not least because adoption is a legal concept.

[tatewise]

The Adoption Event GEDCOM extra fields exist on the Facts tab in FH V6.2.7 that I have on an old PC.
So they must have existed at least in June 2018 when FH V6.2.7 was released. So over 4 years ago.

Some of the 'Rel' fields are also standard GEDCOM and as you say may be inconsistent with the Adoption Event.

The Help page 'How to Flag a Child as Adopted, Illegitimate, etc' describes the 'Rel' fields but nothing else about adoption.
The following Help pages also described how adoption can impact other displays, etc.
'Preferences Dialog: Records Window' ~ Indicate where children are adopted, fostered, etc
'Diagram Options Dialog: General Tab' ~ Birth Priority
Other Help pages mention adoption but none refer to the special features of the Adoption Event or its Fact Witnesses.