Child born out of wedlock
I work at the Lehi FamilySearch Center and are frequently asked how to denote that a women had a child out of wedlock. The problem occurs when none of the other choices like "lived together" or "common law marriage" are inaccurate. Most of these incidents were just a one time encounter and the father may or may not be known. It would be great if we had a choice for a very short relationship because "no couple relationship" is also inaccurate since they obviously had at least a one day relationship. So some suggestions may be "Short relationship with an unknown father" or just "Short relationship" I am sure there may be better ways to state this, but this is a frequent occurrence that needs a category. Thank You
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There seems to be no hard and fast rule on this issue. In my early days working on Family Tree I was advised that, unless there was evidence of there being any "meaningful" relationship, one should add the child to the biological mother and, separately, to the biological father - if he could be identified, of course. In other words, don't place such parents in any sort of relationship.
Attitudes appear to have been modified now and it is common to find children placed beneath their parents (in a relationship), even if the child might have been conceived following a "one night stand".
I would not worry too much about categorising the relationship - in many cases we will just never know how close a father remained to his child. One can just add notes (under Life Sketch or Collaboration) confirming any knowledge / doubts about the nature of the relationship between the parents. Nevertheless, I do not disagree with your suggestion here.
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Possible current work-arounds: If they had a 'short relationship' - then they obviously 'lived together' - i.e. lived together for one day? Use the 'Lived Together' relationship type if none of the others apply?
Otherwise, don't enter a relationship type and put the 'short relationship' in Couple Relationship> Notes?
Not entering a Relationship seems to be what FamilySearch recommends:
"These people do not have a couple relationship but are the parents of a child. If they were married or lived together as husband and wife, add a couple relationship to link them as spouses... If they were never married or never lived together as husband and wife, ... [do not add a couple relationship]."
Maybe just include a similarly worded Note: "These people do not have a couple relationship but are the parents of a child."
There is already the feature to 'Add Child with Unknown Father' - which adds the Parent-child relationship to the Parent that is known (mother typically):
Maybe FamilySearch will consider your Idea - but I can't recall if they have changed the Spouse/Couple Relationship Types for quite a while - so I would probably just tell people to add Notes when they don't have what they want built into features. Maybe the recent interface changes mean it is more of a possibility nowadays...?
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you know they were not married?????? or what if they got married at a later date...
Then create the marriage/couple relationship and date it for the later date.
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In cases like these, after setting the parents, I remove the relationship between the parents using the "Delete Relationship" button at the bottom of the Couple Relationship popup. It will leave the pair linked as a parents of the child but indicates no relationship whatsoever between the parents themselves. It's better than just separately linking a child to a father without a mother and a mother without a father.
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