Under Parents, please change "husband" and "wife" to "father" and "mother".
There are multiple instances where a child can be fathered that do not include the options that are supplied (marriage, living together, etc). Examples: ****, one-night-stand, casual relationship, even in-vitro fertilization, incest, etc.
There are currently no ways to add parents (one-night-stand, etc) to indicate that they parented that child unless we list them separately, which is cumbersome and confusing.
Instead, list the man as "father" (instead of husband), and the woman as "mother". Then add (in the marriage area) a box to be ticked to indicate whether or not they were married. If they weren't married, give us the choice to fill in "never married", etc RIGHT THERE WHERE THE MARRIAGE WOULD GO, not elsewhere on the page where no one sees it. (The same with "no children"; do it right there; not hidden away elsewhere on the page.)
Currently, if there is no marriage date there, it just says "no marriage events", which is meaningless. The researcher has no idea if the marriage date is available but not filled in, or if it's not able to be found, or if it's some other category listed above. I can't tell you how much time I've wasted looking for marriage dates that can't be found, or for people who were never married.
Our goal is accuracy and completeness. I believe that these suggestions would help.
PS: If I google how to add unmarried parents, this is what comes up. However, those options in those locations do not exist in real life. There are no pencil icons next to the parents' names to edit them this way.
AI OverviewTo add unmarried parents to FamilySearch, add both parents to the child, then edit their couple relationship to specify they were not married. On the child's Person Page, click the pencil icon next to the parents' names, select "Edit Relationship," and change the relationship type to "Never Married," "Other," or "No Couple Relationship".
Answers
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AI Overview is not necessarily complete nor accurate. Such information as how a child is parented whether he/she be step, adoptive, foster, etc can be added as a Custom Event using the birthdate but I'd hesitate in being too explicit about Never or Other or No Couple unless you knew the people personally during your lifetime. Example, I have friends who were Never Married (legally) and did not live/reside in the same house but they were indeed a "Couple" whether they had children or not.
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As I wrote in my question, these couples I'm referring to do not fit in any of the drop-down choices in the marriage section: ****, an affair, a one-night stand, etc. They did not co-habitate, were not common law marriage, were not a couple except for sex. It is misleading to list them as a couple.
We need to change Husband and Wife, to Father and Mother.
We also need to add more choices RIGHT IN THE MARRIAGE BOX (instead of way down the page) to indicate that they were in no way a couple. They should not be listed as a couple, and should not be sealed.
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For information on how to prevent a couple being sealed, see the help article How do I prevent a sealing from being available if a couple never married but had a child together? (This part of the discussion should be in the Temple category.) Although your suggestions might provide another way to prevent the sealing, if they were to be implemented at some time in the future, the help article explains the only way to prevent it now.
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