Options for marriage data

LegacyUser

Venitar said: Please add two more options in the marriage data fields in Family Tree and nFS:
"Never married" indicating that an individual reached marriageable age but did not marry or produce children.
"Not married" indicating that a couple produced a child but were not married.
If a researcher saw either of these labels, they would know why there was no marriage data recorded for a particular individual, and so not search for it.

LegacyUser

Ron Tanner said: Interesting idea. In the Family Tree we have separated parent-child relationships from couple relationships. If the couple was not married then I would expect you to delete the couple relationship with that explanation.

We are investigating some wording changes when there are a set of parents without a couple relationship. This may satisfy the need to see that no couple relationship exists for that "family".

LegacyUser

William E Cox said: I suggest several Marriage Relationship / Couple Relationship types:
1. "Never Married" as described above
2. "Unwed Parents" for those who never married but produced biological children
3. "Common Law" Marriage for those who lived in common but never married and may or may not have children. Link needs to exist butno need to look for a marriage information.

LegacyUser

Cathy Anderegg said: And for those who sign in with an LDS account, you might want to put a sealing only relationship, or explain in User Guide and White papers that it is okay to delete sealing only relationships.

LegacyUser

Ron Tanner said: Common Law is in Family Tree. Never Married should just mean that a couple relationship does not exist. Unwed Parents exists in Family Tree by creating a parent child relationship but not have a couple relationship.

LegacyUser

Venitar said: Not necessarily - a couple relationship may not exist in the data because the spouse hasn't be entered. When it is noted that an individual never married, others know why a spouse is not shown.

A couple who actually produced a child outside of marriage may be assumed to have been married, but the wedding information is missing. A note that they were not married will explain the missing data.

While we're at it, why not also include an option of "No Children" for couples who were married but produced no children. The lack of children being connected to a couple may just mean they have not been identified in the program. Noting that no children were born to the couple would eliminate a search for children who don't exist.

LegacyUser

markshepherd said: I have another suggestion. I think engagement should be added as a couple relationship event. In some countries, the enagagement was the more official marriage event and couples began living together and the "marriage" was performed later. Sometimes the enagagement date is available but the records just say "married" without a date. Also in some instances one spouse may have died prior to the "marriage" or for other various reasons the "marriage" never took place or was never documented.

LegacyUser

Jade said: Ron, regarding "Never Married should just mean that a couple relationship does not exist."

There are many times and places where two persons had longstanding 'relationships' but were not considered to be married. Owner/slave, nobility/concubine, John Edwards and his girlfriend, and many other situations that were locally considered more usual but still not "marriage".

There were also many situations which produced a child or children where there may or may not have been a longstanding relationship. And an immense number of situations where **** was/is common. Not to mention instances where what happened cannot now be known.

In some vicinities both recently and currently, the notion of "couple" has some customary acceptability, but significantly different from what is known in the US as "common-law marriage." The term should not be a catch-all for all non-marriage relationships.

LegacyUser

Richard Rands said: Here is another suggestion. Please include some experienced genealogists on your team to help make intelligent decisions before you make blunders like this.

LegacyUser

Venitar said: There are many situations where there never was a "couple" relationship. Some people just never marry, nor produce any children. When a single adult is seen as part of a family in Family Tree, the first response is to assume there was a marriage of some kind, and to search for a spouse. If it is noted that the adult "never married," the question is answered.

"Not married" would indicate that a child was produced by a known man and a known woman who were not married, and did not live together in any long-standing couple relationship. This would apply to rapes, one-night stands, week-ends in Las Vegas, and etc. These types of 'relationships' have existed forever.

If there was a longstanding couple relationship, such as concubine, slave, plural wife (in other cultures), mistress, etc., that may or may not have produced children, that relationship would fall into the category of common-law marriage, in my opinion.

LegacyUser

Jade said: "If there was a longstanding couple relationship, such as concubine, slave, plural wife (in other cultures), mistress, etc., that may or may not have produced children, that relationship would fall into the category of common-law marriage, in my opinion. "

Concubinage in most instances and slavery in all cases are ownership relationships (males owning females, in this discussion of relationships). The legal framework (where laws existed and applied) was quite different from that regarding relationships that most modern Europeans and inhabitants of the Americas would call marriage.

As matters of customary practice, some relationships called "marriages" are close to this in the present day (where the woman has no legal right to separate or divorce, to her own property or to earn independent income, to be parent to or see her children if the man divorces or abandons her, or to remarry in those circumstances, and often no recourse to institutions administering law on her own behalf). This set of conditions is not at all far from what pertained in USA history, not all that long ago. But this does not mean that slavery and concubinage are equivalent to common-law marriage.

In some places "common-law-marriage" is governed by the same legal framework as if a legally recognized procedure had been carried out. In some places, not so much, since the relationships can be variable in details and sometimes difficult to prove. Consider 20th-century USA "palimony" cases.

LegacyUser

Cathy Anderegg said: Thanks you guys for clarifying all the "marriage" definitions. Please make sure these distinctions are put into the User Guide for Family Tree so all users can benefit from your knowledge.

LegacyUser

Venitar said: These are tricky situations! Perhaps it will help if we consider them from the standpoint of sealings. Which situations would qualify a couple for a sealing, and which ones, if any, would not?

LegacyUser

joe martel said: In nfs there were about 70 different types of "marriage" events that users used to describe these couple events. The bulk of the formal marriage events fell into the categories you see in the FT drop down. This list slants toward the more formal/legal types in a non-localized terminology. If we included all types across cultures, time and government we could have many many more types.

In FamilyTree the Spousal relationships is separated from the Parent-Child relationships. Based on this the user sees three possible combinations:
1. Couple that have a Spousal Relationship, possibly with a "marriage"-like event and attached Sources. This couple may or may not have children
2. Couple that has no Spousal Relationship but the couple exists because there is a child with these two as parents
3. Single parent, which has no Spousal, but one child has that person as a parent.

If there is a formal Spousal relationship you can create one, and denote it with a type like "marriage". You don't need an event date or place. If its not specifically a formal Marriage-like event but something akin to it, then choose the one that makes the most sense like Common-law, and in the Reason specify more info.

In the future a Spousal Relationship will support a Note where a user could provide other information.

The goal of the system was to support conclusionary information with the ability to Source that conclusion. The desire to provide a "journal" like system where the system can capture all aspects of a person is currently beyond the resource and scope constraints. We try to avoid "negative" conclusions like, "not married", "not stillborn", "not a child of"...

Personally, I would not create a conclusion that said they weren't married. I think "common-law" would cover these informal instances across diverse cultures and governments, and "engagement" sounds equivalent to "marriage".

I certainly would like further discussion regarding the need for "not married".

LegacyUser

Jade said: Joe, you say "If we included all types across cultures, time and government we could have many many more types."

Er, isn't FS-Family Tree supposed to be a world tree? This presupposes incorporating different conceptions in different places/times, including that identity of a male parent of a child can be a lot more questionable than the identity of the woman who gave birth to the child, including modern YDNA testing which can not identify the male parent who is not also tested.

The idea of "couple" presupposes a lot more than does "parents." There is a built-in ~wish~ in FS-FT for the sort of "family" that many religious doctrines and 1950s television sitcoms envision. But real life does not and did not conform to ideologies (past and present).

For example, one of my distant cousins was daughter of a then-unmarried woman, and her biological father was already married to the mother's sister. Calling the two parents a "couple" is probably inaccurate -- whether there was ever any intimate association between the two parents other than the one that produced the particular child is unknown (**** is a possibility).

LegacyUser

Venitar said: "Never married" simply indicates that there was no marriage-like relationship for that individual, and no children produced by that person. It is not an unusual situation, and noting it will explain why no marriage-like relationship is shown. It would apply to those who lived to adulthood, but never married or produced a child, hence there is no couple sealing to be performed.

"Not married" indicates that a known man and a known woman produced a child out of wedlock, and were not subsequently married to each other.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: Oh, I was thinking "not married" was the same as "never married" and that it would be helpful to know when there was a child born to them, but they weren't married.

LegacyUser

Jade said: Venitar, you said, "Never married" simply indicates that there was no marriage-like relationship for that individual, and no children produced by that person. "

I agree that "Never married" signifies no known marriage found for the person, but not that it signifies no children produced. Children could have been sired or delivered for whom there might only be a sealed adoption record or a guardianship record found much later in one's research. When record of such a child is found, the identity of the other parent might not be found. The parent's marital status would remain the same unless some marital-type relationship were subsequently found. There are many persons who were mothers of several children although marriage was never in the picture. The same is even more true of men, who may be a lot less commonly identified as parent of their biological children.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: There are actually two dimensions to this issue. One is regarding the individual: they died as an infant and never were married. The other is regarding a couple: though they had kids together, were never/not/almost married...

LegacyUser

Venitar said: Yes, Joe, it is confusing. Perhaps there are better terms to use. Bottom line, people who reached adulthood but never married or produced a child, ought to be identified some way. The suggestion of using "Never Married" comes from the genealogy data management program on my computer.

People who produced a child out of wedlock ought to be identified as the biological parents of the child even though they were never married to each other. When only one of the parents is identified, that parent should be acknowledged as a biological parent, and the other parent as 'unknown.' When the known parent marries, the spouse becomes the de-facto 'adoptive' parent of the child. When neither biological parent is known, the adoptive/foster parents replace the biological parents.

Being honest about events, even when the truth is somewhat distasteful, makes our research more accurate. When one or both parents of an out-of-wedlock child are known, it is appropriate to acknowledge that the parents were "Unmarried" or "Not married."

LegacyUser

Venitar said: When a child died as an infant, it is obvious that there was no earthly marriage. However, it is expected that adults married, so when they didn't, it is appropriate to point that out.

Regarding a couple who produced a child, either they were married or they were not. If they were not, it is appropriate to point that out.

Let's remember that Family Tree is meant to include people from all cultures. Not every culture has the same marriage traditions, but they each have some sort of marriage tradition. Couples were either married or not, according to their own culture, when a child was produced. We need to accept each culture's idea of what makes a couple a couple, rather than trying to make it fit into our definition. An explanation field in the attach box of a marriage source would provide an opportunity to explain others' traditions.

LegacyUser

Jade said: Venitar, a few of your statements:

a) "People who produced a child out of wedlock ought to be identified as the biological parents of the child even though they were never married to each other"
--I completely agree. They should not be called "couple". They should be called "parents" unless evidence for some otherwise-defined relationship ~between them~ is found.

b) "When only one of the parents is identified, that parent should be acknowledged as a biological parent, and the other parent as 'unknown.'"
--I think the system should not be loaded up with individuals known only as with/without estimated vital dates/places. There may be need in the child's individual page for a space-filler term, but that should not be in the system otherwise, in my opinion. It is just too tempting for a person with affinity for Leave-It-To-Beaver families to then invent a marriage event, etc.

c) "When the known parent marries, the spouse becomes the de-facto 'adoptive' parent of the child."
--In my experience in real life and genealogically speaking, this simply is not true, and should not be entered by the user unless there is actual evidence of the adoption. I have seen many instances where a child or children by a prior relationship (of whatever kind) were put out to other households as shown in Census enumerations while the biological mother is shown in the marriage with one or more children for whom there is evidence that they were products of the marriage. This sort of situation has legal ramifications with respect to inheritance in estate records, and system users should not be encouraged to make and enter assumptions as to "adoption." I will refrain from recounting a complex mid-19th-century matter relating to execution of a will in WV. This kind of situation also sheds a certain light on the character of a Mohawk Valley, NY husband who specifically made a bequest to his wife's child XY -- the fact in that time/place that he provided something for that child was quite remarkable. The will also illuminated meaning of a tricky church record in somewhat ambiguous German.

LegacyUser

Cathy Anderegg said: I hate to bring this up and complicate things further, but have you guys considered the modern day practice of surrogate parents? As I understand it, the surrogate mother gets pregnant in vitro and gives birth to the child, so she is the biological mother. But she give the child to the biological donor father and his infertile wife, who raise the child. Before we dismiss this scenario too quickly, we need to realize that this is happening much more frequently. Because of scientific innovations, traditional family relationships are being turned upside down.

LegacyUser

Cathy Anderegg said: Further muddying the system are the "sealing only" relationships that are seen with many, many pioneer records. The policy known as the "law of adoption" has put in my gg grandfather's case, 68 couple relationships on his details page to women he never knew and who were dead when the sealings occurred. Besides the 9 living women he married, I have to deal with all these other records. It is a mess, and needs to be addressed fully and completely. I sent Lynn Van Wagenen the response from DQ support on this matter. They say leave these in place. Not good, in my opinion.

LegacyUser

Venitar said: There are exceptions to everything. Whether or not a child was considered to have been adopted by a parent's new spouse depends on the tradition of the place, and the wealth of the family. For royalty, and the upper crust, every relationship had to be carefully recorded. For the "rest of us" formal legalities were not always observed. What mattered was who lived in the house with the parents.

My personal DNA arrived in the USA between 1840 and 1890, and my ancestors were mostly just ordinary people. They came here from five distinct areas of Europe, and their ancestors added a couple more distinct areas to the pot. Each area had its own set of traditions regarding family relationships. They were similar, but not all the same. So the questions in my research have been simplified to situations such as, were they married or not married? Do we know the child's father/mother? Did that father/mother ever marry? etc., and I am happy when I find a primary record that gives me a yes or no answer.

LegacyUser

Cathy Anderegg said: Do some research on the "law of adoption" practiced for a decade or so in pioneer times when "famous" men were sought out by relatives of deceased girls who persuaded to get themselves sealed to these women, whom they never even knew. So you can't figure in sealing here or we'll be muddled even more.

LegacyUser

Ron Tanner said: Remove any relationships that are not genealogically sound regardless of any sealing. Temple records are independent of any relationships in the pedigree. So in your case, remove those relationships.

Also, I believe that we can handle the relationship you are talking about. The biological mother and biological father are listed with the child that was born. There would be another parent-child relationship with the biological father and the infertile mother. We may need to consider other types of relationships besides biological, foster, step, etc.

LegacyUser

Cathy Anderegg said: Ron,
The following is an excerpt from the answer I got from Support Headquarters on July 26th. Does what you just advised supersede this counsel to "leave the records as they are" until "further guidance is received about this matter"?

"Additionally, in the early days of the Church, another common practice was to seal women who were not married or sealed in life to priesthood holders.
Such "adoptions" are presently recorded in the CD version of the IGI and in the new FamilySearch as "sealings," but clearly they have a different meaning than "sealing" of an actual parent to child as we presently understand it. Until we receive further guidance about this matter, we should leave the records as they are. We should not combine any known woman with the "unknown" mother. We should not use these "adoptions" in any way as evidence for historical family relationships."

Should I start deleting these sealing relationships only, or leave the records as they are?

LegacyUser

Richard Rands said: Ron. Please let us know what the rationale is behind separating so-called couple relationships from parent/child relationships. If we can understand your reasoning for it, it might make sense. It sounds as though you expect us to create a record for every change in the many relationships that occur in the life of individuals from puberty to death. Not only is that absurd, but it is impossible to document, and it is totally unnecessary for a genealogy. If a couple lives together for a few years then go their separate ways without giving birth, does that constitute a couple relationship? If the male sires a child with someone else during that period, do you document his "relationship" with both women? It strikes me that this new concept is way beyond the scope of building a family tree, and will result in even more people abandoning the FamilySearch methodology. I would like to know which genealogist you consulted with on this idea so I can ask why he or she agreed to it.

In a pedigree, there is a parent/child relationship associated with an singular event in time called a birth. More often than not, the "couple relationship" at the time of the event is assumed to be husband and wife, and is most often recorded by the church, the civil jurisdiction, or some other socially acceptible means. Illegitimacy is only a notation in the birth record that will help family historians to understand why a father is not in the record, or why the birth occurred before the marriage. It certainly does not warrant a separate record in the system. Besides, illegitimacy is not a concept that is the same everywhere and at all times.

In the pedigree, a genealogist is not interested in what other couple relationships there might have been before or after a birth, unless another child is born. All kinds of things can happen between the births of children, including divorce, death, separation, infidelity, adoption, and many others. Attempting to record all but a very few of those relationships is not in the purview of genealogists, and certainly does not warrant creating a confusing concept in a family tree system. Virtually all of the strange changes in relationships between parents can be easily explained in a few lines of notes and do not warrant a bewildering change in the system. If a couple get a divorce after having children, then have a child after the divorce and then decide to remarry, an attempt to have a trail of records in the system to show this will inevitably require many lines of error-prone code, than a notes screen where a few lines of explanation ill make it quite clear.

Please help me understand what this is all about.

Richard Rands

LegacyUser

markshepherd said: I think when the final options for use in the couple relationship type are decided, it would be a good idea to create in the user's manual (or even better a pop up for each relationship type) specific definitions of what each means, and include various examples for each relationship type. That way users could better understand what is meant by each available relationship and then choose the one that most accurately represents the relationship.

LegacyUser

Jade said: Venitar, that is very well put. I do think some expansion of categories is warranted, however, and best not left to the "reason to attach" box.