Unmarried parents?

eyesonly3 · Post by **eyesonly3** » 07 May 2006 11:20

I have an individual who gives a fathers name on his married certificate but on his birth certificate there is no father. His Mother is Hannah Newsome and his father is Edward Newsome but I can't assume they were married. To add to the confusion, later in his life he took the name Roberts and had two sisters also called Roberts. How do I record this without creating a marriage that may not have existed?

ID:1615

rfj1001 · Post by **rfj1001** » 07 May 2006 18:18

I'm sure others will give more expert replies than me - but FH treats this as two separate issues. The first is who are the parents - the second is whether they were married. The latter is done via the marriage date - so if it is blank then there is no assumption of marriage.

I've got a similar thing where the child was definitely born out of wedlock (nothing on the birth cert for a father); the mother definitely married (but 2 years after the birth) and the child certainly thought that person was their father. I've covered that one with quite heavy use of notes.

HTH

Rob

eyesonly3 · Post by **eyesonly3** » 08 May 2006 13:06

Thank you for your response. Even with no date in the marriage field the diagram view does not distinguish between married and unmarried couples. I also have the problem that the Edward Newsome was who he believed was his father at the time of his marriage. Edwards record needs a big 'maybe' flag on it.

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 08 May 2006 13:13

You could simply add a note to the diagram or add a flag and assign an icon in V3 to show the problem.

You obviously can't use the never married standard option, so just a flag for illegitimate may be what you need.

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