New Relationship Type
With new DNA techniques and results, people are finding more and more that a biological connection to parents may be different than the legal connection. While someone is born legally to a set of parents, the biological parent may be different. Perhaps "legal" parent rather than "adoptive," which usually means a legal process was followed to make the child part of the family. What I am trying to suggest is that a child born into a legal marriage, legally the child of record, may have a different father than on the birth certificate. These things are found through DNA records.
Comments
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@suzanneweber1 Your idea has been sent to the appropriate manager. Thank you for your contribution!
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I'm glad to see this idea has been submitted! I was starting to make a comment on a discussion about a couple relationship (they had sexual relationships that resulted in a child but they were never married to each other and also didn't live together) and was writing the following, but thought that maybe I would go and see if there was already a discussion about it.
So here are my thoughts if it is still being discussed as to why another option needs to exist.
The NPE I know was the result of his married mother having an affair and cheating on her husband, the Dad who raised him, with a divorced man. When the child was born (and we are fairly certain the husband was not aware that an affair had started while he was away serving in the military during WWII and that it continued for at least 2 months after he returned home and the child was conceived), the husband was of course listed as the father on the birth certificate. There was no adoption of the child because the husband thought it was his child.
Likewise, the step-parent option also isn't applicable, since that often indicates or creates the assumption that the step-parent came into the child's life after their biological parents divorced or separated, etc.
So I wholeheartedly agree that there needs to be a "Legal parent" option for cases like this where the father, who has always been listed on the birth certificate is the "Legal Father", even when it is discovered he isn't the biological father.
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I'm sort of confused. If an adoption has occurred, the legal parents have been established, and they are not the birth parents.
My adopted cousin has passed, and there is absolutely no reference to the fact that she was adopted on her death certificate. Her adoptive parents are listed as her parents and that is that. Unless you know those were not her birth parents, there is NO indication they are not.
There is no difference between legal parent and adoptive parent. They are one and the same.
The situation where someone discovers that the man they thought was their biological father is actually not, some other man is their biological father, is different. No adoption process has happened. However, in today's environment of DNA testing, this kind of discovery has become so common that I suspect there is a legally established default relationship. I just don't know what it is.
My gut tells me, however, that back when my siblings and I were dividing up my deceased parents' estate, if a previously unknown half sibling had showed up and tried to claim an equal share of the estate, there would have been some legal impediments to prevent that. (This didn't happen, by the way.) It would be interesting if a lawyer knowledgable on the subject would enlighten us.
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Adoption is not at all the only circumstance under which the concept of a legal father can apply. I think the question actually arises much more frequently as a result of adultery and other expressions of marital discord.
As an example, in 19th century Hungarian law, a child's legal father was the mother's husband. It didn't matter if he went to America years before the mother gave birth; if he was still her legal husband, then he was the legal father of her children. Combined with the near-impossibility of getting a divorce if there were minor children, this law resulted in a fair number of people who were obligated to use the surname of a man they'd never so much as met. I have one relative who changed his surname to his mother's as the very first act of his majority, and I've researched another situation where a court case was filed to get the children declared illegitimate so that their actual father could then adopt them, without the legal father's consent. (It seems he was denying his wife's requests out of sheer spite.)
So yeah, a "legal father" option would be good. I've been making do with "guardianship" as the closest equivalent, but it's not quite right, because it implies an active decision, rather than a passive default state.
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Current United States law is rather straightforward, until it gets complicated, of course:
What Is The Difference Between A Legal Father And A Biological Father?
Every child has a biological father. The biological father is the man who contributed half of the child`s genetic makeup.
The legal father may not be the biological father. The legal father is the man the law recognizes as the father of the child.
When a married couple has a child, the law automatically recognizes the husband as the child`'s legal father; [emphasis added - note there is nothing about whether that husband is the biological father or not] therefore, paternity does not need to be determined.
When an unmarried woman has a child, an official act is needed to establish the legal father of a child. This is called the establishing of paternity. Paternity can be established by: The mother and the alleged father agreeing that he is the father [emphasis added - note that again this has nothing to do with whether that man is the biological father] of the child and then signing the Paternity Affidavit Form or the mother and the alleged father asking the court to officially declare that he is the child's legal father.
Sometimes, parents may want proof that the man is the biological father of the child before he is named the legal father. In that case, the parents can request genetic testing. This testing can exclude a man who is not the biological father of the child, or it can create a legal presumption of paternity if the test results show a 99% or greater probability that the man is the father. Once paternity is established, an order for child support can be established.
Adoption changes the legal father, but adoption is not needed to designate a legal father.
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what designation do you use when the couple lives together, never marries, and has children? It is not a spouse. Is the term partner? Have you considered a common law marriage term? They are technically married in the eyes of the law even though no document is on file for the marriage. Would you call these children illegitimate? Is there such a term in this tree program? I don't see a selection for this situation.
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@Sharon Trammell, I assume you are talking about relatives from generations past and everyone is deceased which means there really are no legal niceties to worry about. On the marriage pop-up window:
There are a couple of types of relationship to choose by clicking in that top box:
Whether you use Common Law Marriage or Lived Together probably doesn't really matter. Other relatives will know what you mean. If the situation was such that the couple lived together to the end of their lives and acted throughout as married, I personally would probably use Common Law Marriage. If they just lived together for a few years then went their separate ways, I'd probably use Lived Together.
As far as marking children legitimate or illegitimate, there is no provision for this in Family Tree. If anybody actually cares, they can always compare a child's birth date to the parent's marriage date or lack thereof.
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In general, people kept track of legitimacy because it determined the child's surname. If the profile has the same surname as the father, that's equivalent to checking a "legitimate" box, and makes the existence of such a box redundant.
It may seem pedantic, but I think it'll clarify things to note that the only place where FamilySearch differentiates between relationship types is in the new Other Relationships section. For couple relationships, you can enter different relationship event types.
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