Only One Parent is known
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?
Best Answers
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@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 ....).
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What I usually do with a known parent and an unknown parent is this:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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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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.
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Answers
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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.
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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.
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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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Its unfortunally not unlikely
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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.
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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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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'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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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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If there are no sources and no known names, leave the slot empty.
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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.
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