how to record STEP child versus BIOLOGICAL
Answers
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Hello,
Yes, very important. This is for the Web FamilySearch. Let me know if you are using the mobile version.
The relationship type specifies the relationship of a child to a parent. Currently, Family Tree provides 5 relationship types:
- Adopted
- Biological
- Guardianship
- Foster
- Step
When you link a child to a parent, Family Tree assumes the relationship is biological. If it is not, there is a simple way to change it.
Steps (website)
- While signed in to FamilySearch.org, click Family Tree.
- Navigate to the Person page of the individual.
- If you do not see Vitals near the top of the page, click Details.
- Scroll to the Family Members section.
- Under Parents and Siblings, find the child's name, and click the Edit icon.
- Change the current relationship type by clicking the Edit button in the Mother or Father sections. Explain the reason for your change, and then click Save. You can also click Remove or Replace to remove the relationship type.
- Include missing relationship information by clicking Add Relationship Type. Select a relationship type, explain the reason for your change, and then click Save.
- To see a summary of all relationship details for the child, click Tools, then click See All Changes and edit the information from there.
Thank you,
AnitraW
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@Richard Long
- Navigate to the page of the person who is the step child.
- Scroll to Family Members.
- On the Parents and Siblings side, click the pencil icon to the right of the child's name.
- Under both the mother and father you see Add Relationship Type. Click that for which ever one is the step parent.
- It defaults to Biological. Click the down arrow in the box that shows Biological and you can click Step.
- Enter a reason you know the info is correct and then click Save.
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Thank You. I got it now.
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Thank you for the short, direct method.
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There seems to be a bug in how the stepchildren are shown on the main page (not the "edit").
Jane had a child with Richard.
She divorced Richard and remarried Charles.
The child of Richard and Jane is correctly set as biological. That shows correctly on Richard's page.
For Charles, the child was set as his stepchild maintaining Jane as the biological parent.
Yet, on Janes's page, it shows they are stepchildren under her and Charles. The same happens on the child's page where it groups Jane and Charles as step parents.
However, if you click the "edit", the relationship shows biological with Jane and step with Charles. Most people won't click the "edit".
On Jane's and the child's page, can the "biological" relationship be annotated for Jane while maintaining "step" for Charles?
I already had a family member who got confused with that.
Thank you and keep up the great work you're doing!
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Follow-up...
The Discovery page for the child shows the wrong parents.
It shows the stepfather and biological mother, not the biological father and mother.
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Can you post an image where the notation is confusing? Or the ID in Family Tree? What might be confusing is that the relationship is not shown when it is biological.
Here, for example, on the child's page, it does show step just for step father and biological for his mother and father because no notation is meant to signify biological.
Also on the mother's page the step relationship is shown just with the step father:
Regarding the discovery page, are the mother and step-father marked as the preferred parents? That might be what is causing them to display there. Unfortunately, it takes two or three weeks for the discovery page to change if you edit anything in Family Tree. So if that is the case and you change the preferred parents, you have to wait a few weeks to see if that fixed the discovery page.
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Thank you for the quick response.
Robert's and his older sister's biological parents are James Stephen and Helen. I'll focus on Robert in this message but his sister does the same thing.
His step father was Albert when Helen remarried.
Here, Robert is shown with two "parents", not step. I tried to copy the url and got an error. So, look at the "Timeline" for this person, ID LTZR-YM2 It should say "Death of Step Parent" assuming "Parent" is biological.
Also, look at his biological mother's detail page. Her ID is L6S8-PP3. It shows him as her stepson but click the "edit" and see she is "biological".
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Re: the Discovery page's choice of parents to show, no, the "preferred" checkbox will not change it. As far as I can tell, nothing short of removing a parent will change it: it shows whichever parents default to "preferred" for someone who has never looked at the profile before, and no, I don't know how that default is determined. I think it's something totally random, like date of profile creation or alphabetical by ID or some such.
(Remember that "preferred" is a per-user setting, while the Discovery page and the default are global.)
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Can you kindly ask your programmer to use whatever is set for that person?
That is, when on Helen's Detail page, show him as "biological" and on his step father's page, show him as a "step child".
Same goes for the "Timeline".
There must be an entry in the database to indicate that Albert is the stepfather, not biological, and that the correct "step father" should be displayed. Ditto for showing Helen as the biological when on her page.
People don't read far into the data and making this change will clear up a lot of confusion. I already got challenged with someone who was confused with that. I took the time to try to determine how to have it display correctly and could not. This is a bug in the program.
Many people want to follow the biological lineage and will have a problem the way it's displayed now, like two fathers in the Timeline or having to click "edit" to see the real relationship.
As a programmer, this should be an easy fix if your database is correctly set up designating biological and step relationships.
If you cannot get this bug to the programmers, let me know how I can reach them.
Thank you!
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@Sherlock.Holmes, no, the Family Members section is not showing Helen Warga as a stepparent. It says, quite clearly, that the "Step" relationship applies to Albert Andrew Hall. Helen's name is not Albert Andrew Hall, so I really do not see how the display could possibly be interpreted as saying she has anything whatsoever to do with that "step" indicator.
In the Time Line, the "parent" relationship doesn't specify the exact type, and thus encompasses all of the possibilities. This is likely dictated by space considerations as well as processing time: the abbreviated, multi-purpose labeling fits better and doesn't require any adjustment for a wide range of scenarios.
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Thank you for the quick reply. I've preferred familysearch.org over others because of the quality. It should be designed for the end user and I understand your concerns about space and time.
I now see what you mean that Albert is the "step". I've already had people get confused by that. Showing "1925 - Biological _ Helen Varga" would clear that up. Sending those few letters over the Net will not noticeably increase the bandwidth or the execution time as there is already an if-then statement to show "step" if it applies.
Can the Timeline be modified to show the "step" parents properly to avoid the confusion that newcomers have? That data are already in the database so storage should not be an issue. Ditto for the execution time as, for example, Helen's page shows her as "biological" when you click the "edit". So, the timeline should be able to do the same and present the correct data.
As I understand it, FamilySearch.org is proactive in getting the One-World Tree correct. Having the word "step" or "step parent" or "step child" does not take up storage as those words (or code) would be in the same database field and not added to the database structure or space in the database.
I really hope that this can be corrected to show the proper connections between parent and child.
Make it a lovely day!
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I highly recommend avoiding attaching step parents, since this causes sources to be attached to the wrong people and confusion when looking at a family in tree view. I have even seen people incorrectly copy this to other sites adding people with the wrong parents.
I see no purpose in attaching them in a family tree as a person does not descend from their step parents so the family history of the step-parents has no relation to the person. Instead I recommend mentioning them in a person's life sketch.
The best solution would be to only show step-parents for the person who attached them.
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Family History is more than biology. Step-parents can have a tremendous influence on their step-children so the option to show them as real parents, just like adoptive parents, should remain and be used but should work correctly. Any improvements in the display that increase the clarity of family relationships would be good to have put in place.
Each family situation should to be evaluated, however, for the appropriate use of this feature. Would I attach as a step-parent the second wife of someone who lived in 1720 whose child was 30 at the time of that marriage? No. Would I attach as a step-parent the husband who is not the biological father who married a child's mother when the child was a month of age? Yes.
Attaching step-parents will not cause confusion or cause incorrect sources to be attached when users take the time to really look at a family enough to understand who everybody is and don't just willy-nilly slap on every hint they are presented with.
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I believe in the context of the world tree, every person should be on the tree and if there is a source for a marriage every marriage should be properly documented. This has nothing to do with the relationship - or not - between the step parent and the children of other spouses.
Besides, when I put the “step” parents of an adopted relative of mine on the tree, a big surprise emerged. Bio mom and bio dad married other people. It turned out bio mom married a second cousin! My adopted relative doesn’t have half siblings from bio mom, they are 3/4 ish siblings. We confirmed this in a conversation with bio mom.
Never, never make a determination in advance that someone is not important because YOU think they are not related to you. You really don’t know that.
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Getting back to the discovery page. It is hard to tell what influences the display there because of the several week lag time between editing a person's page and the discovery page updating. One change in the new person page as seen on the beta site, is that the discovery page is being incorporated directly on that page as a new About tab. That tab updates immediately and so it can be seen there that step (and other type) parents are not handled properly by changing the preferred parents:
I've sent in feedback about this bug.
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