When adding members to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, why can only add spouses to a member?

DCoutts

Quite often historical (male) figures had multiple wives and children by each wife.

Sometimes they had additional children from sexual liaison with (insert descriptive term here) and there is noway to represent this relationship and the child gets assigned to the next wife.

In years to come there are going to be hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands of G('s) grandchildren that are going to not be able to trace their ancestors because they have a ancestor who conceived with donor sperm and the records may not be available to establish the (e.g.) actual father.

It seems to me that something that happened 400 years ago should not still considered as a sensitive matter, especially when the these are historical figures such as kings and queens, dukes, lords, etc and sometimes the child when on to become an important historical person themselves.

Alan E. Brown

I don't understand what you consider to be limiting in Family Tree for these situations. A person can have multiple spouses. A child can have multiple sets of parents, and they can be designated as different types (biological, adoptive, step, guardian, foster). Those are the relationships used to build the Tree, and should cover all couple and parental relationships.

There are also Other Relationships that allow you to document other kinds of relationships, but it doesn't sound like those would be needed for what you are describing. Regular couple and parent-child relationships of these various types should be sufficient.

DCoutts

This is a comment that somebody else posted:

"had illegitimate children with different women but according to the family tree guidelines, those children are to be linked with the mother and no relationship with the father since he did not marry the children's mother. "

Is this correct?

DCoutts

Ok so a designation as a 'biological' relationship will cover it.

So, as per the quote provided;

"had illegitimate children with different women but according to the family tree guidelines, those children are to be linked with the mother and no relationship with the father since he did not marry the children's mother. ",

this assertion being made here is incorrect, there is a relationship with the father and such a child can be linked with the father.

Alan E. Brown

@DCoutts , I can't tell where that quote came from, but whoever said that certainly misunderstands Family Tree guidelines.

You most definitely should provide parent-child relationships to identify who the parents are. As I mentioned, there can be multiple sets of parents for a child. A child should have a biological parent-child relationship to the biological parents. Every credible genealogist I know of will agree with that. They may also have additional parent-child relationships to adoptive (or step or guardian or foster) parents who raised them.

It's not as clear what if any couple relationship should exists between the co-parents who may not have ever lived in any actual relationship. Perhaps the author of that comment confused the issue of a couple relationship, which in my opinion should not exist in some situations like this, and parental relationships, which certainly should.

For a more detailed discussion of this topic, look here: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/147726/how-are-unmarried-parents-best-represented-in-familytree . That may well include far more details than you are asking for, but it provides thoughtful insights.