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Only One Parent is known

GalerGlennStephen
GalerGlennStephen ✭
June 8, 2022 edited July 16, 2024 in Family Tree

I have a person on my Tree that has her father listed on her obituary. I cannot find the name of her mother. Can I use Mrs. as a title with only her last married name along with an approximate birth date to enter the mother? I am also assuming the parents were born in the same country, Russia, as their first two children, prior to immigrating to the U.S. is this an acceptable assumption?

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Best Answers

  • Julia Szent-Györgyi
    Julia Szent-Györgyi ✭✭✭✭✭
    June 8, 2022 Answer ✓

    @GalerGlennStephen, you only need one parent in order to enter siblings, so there's really no point in creating a profile for a mother whose name you don't know. Unfortunately, "helpful" souls abound who would cheerfully merge Mrs. Klein with Mrs. Klein, regardless of totally-different husbands and children (and birthplaces and birth centuries and ....).

    5
  • dontiknowyou
    dontiknowyou ✭✭✭✭✭
    June 10, 2022 Answer ✓

    What I usually do with a known parent and an unknown parent is this:

    1. Create a profile for the unknown parent with the children's surname or the spouse's surname and "Mr" or Mrs" in the title field.
    2. Give the unknown parent a birth year that is about the same decade as the known parent. By that, I mean if the father was born in 1862 I give the mother a birth date of "about 1860". I deliberately ignore the over-determined rule of thumb that wives are a few years younger than husbands.
    3. Check the children's census records for birthplace of the unknown parent. Look not just at the index records but also at the page images.
    4. Work on the profiles of the children and spouse.

    Very often in this process I find a record that gives the full name and other details of the unknown parent.

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  • Julia Szent-Györgyi
    Julia Szent-Györgyi ✭✭✭✭✭
    June 10, 2022 edited June 10, 2022 Answer ✓

    dontiknowyou's method might be useful for a parent who is likely to turn up in a record somewhere as "Mr./Mrs. So-and-so". For a person who never lived in an English-speaking community, the chance of that is effectively zero.

    As I said, you only need one parent in order to enter siblings, and the need to enter a known sibling is the only reason I can come up with for entering an unknown parent. If you know a name for the father, just enter him. If you find information about the mother later on, you can create a profile for her then.

    1

Answers

  • Ulf Duvemyr
    Ulf Duvemyr ✭✭✭
    June 8, 2022

    The best is to leave it blank, until you find the correct information, Otherwise there is a chance that someone with another Mrs and the last name merge the wrong person.

    3
  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    June 8, 2022 edited June 8, 2022

    Yes, I would agree that any detail that is unknown should be left blank. Until you can find the mother's identity, place a note in the Collaboration section of the father to explain why no spouse's name has (yet) been inputted. You might wish to add a note to the daughter's page, too.

    2
  • GalerGlennStephen
    GalerGlennStephen ✭
    June 8, 2022

    When merging, one would see a husband’s name as well as the child’s name, birth year and place. Therefore, it is quite unlikely that a merge would be completed when two of the three specifics were not a match.

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  • Ulf Duvemyr
    Ulf Duvemyr ✭✭✭
    June 8, 2022

    Its unfortunally not unlikely

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  • CookeWilliamB1
    CookeWilliamB1 ✭✭
    June 8, 2022 edited June 8, 2022

    Here is how to put in the Unknown wife. YOu can only do this with the unknown wife not an unknown husband. Put in Mrs and no . Then put in the husbands name. Then put in an appropriate birthdate possibly 2 to 3 years after the husband. And for the birth put in at least the name of a country. Then yes you can do the temple work now for the wife. And to seal children to them, yes you need both the husband and the wife.

    1
  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    June 9, 2022 edited June 9, 2022

    @CookeWilliamB1

    I think you will find that was the previous FamilySearch policy - IDs with the symbol "?" were even created for the wife / mother - but we are now told to leave unknown names as blank. Your suggestion might "help" with temple work, but is certainly not accepted by most genealogists.

    Not being a Church member, I don't know how taking names to the temple works nowadays - perhaps other, experienced LDS Church members can advise on the current "workaround" regarding sealing an unknown mother to the children?

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  • GalerGlennStephen
    GalerGlennStephen ✭
    June 10, 2022
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/455626#Comment_455626

    Thank you. The children came to the US as married adults. The only reason I know the father’s name is it is listed on the adult child’s death record. Neither parent came to the US. Also, no Naturalization record is available so I doubt the mother’s name will become available (Russian) in my lifetime.

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  • dontiknowyou
    dontiknowyou ✭✭✭✭✭
    June 10, 2022

    dontiknowyou's method might be useful for a parent who is likely to turn up in a record somewhere as "Mr./Mrs. So-and-so". For a person who never lived in an English-speaking community, the chance of that is effectively zero.

    Although in some countries a wife does not take her husband's surname, the Family Tree hints system seems to handle this gracefully. I put Mr/Mrs in the Title field only temporarily, as a reminder to myself that the name is a placeholder and needs work. As far as I can tell, the Title field is ignored by the hints system. Making a profile with approximate birth date and birth country often is enough for the hints system to find more correct historical records, even when the surname is wrong.

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  • dontiknowyou
    dontiknowyou ✭✭✭✭✭
    June 10, 2022

    The only reason I know the father’s name is it is listed on the adult child’s death record.

    I find most death records are correct about the parents' names, but perhaps 10% are wildly off. So, don't assume the death record is correct.

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  • RTorchia
    RTorchia ✭✭✭
    June 14, 2022

    If there are no sources and no known names, leave the slot empty.

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  • CookeWilliamB1
    CookeWilliamB1 ✭✭
    June 14, 2022

    There only a few people who can read both old Russian and current Russian. Yes getting ancestor names in those Russian names will take time and the Spirit to get that done.

    1
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