System needs a Tree Indicator for Single mother with a child and an unknown Father.

LegacyUser

Bruce Kent Salmond said: First I want to thank you for such a wonderful system!
Hi Bruce, this is Elder XXXXX. How may we help you?
You 12:57 PM
I have a question with my tree
You 12:57 PM
Unwed mother father is unknown Person
You 12:58 PM
Who should I enter it into my tree?
You 12:58 PM
Mother has one child
You 12:59 PM
I want the child to be able to be sealed to the single mother?
Agent 1:00 PM
You must have the father's name, but the name of the mother is not essential.
You 1:01 PM
I first used UNKNOWN for the father's name then deleted it
Agent 1:01 PM
Well, a child cannot be sealed to its mother without the name of the father.
Agent 1:06 PM
That is fine. Can you now please give me the ID number for the individual?
You 1:08 PM
LH18FC8, MZTN-S3V & L5PX-CC9 ​
Agent 1:16 PM
That L5FX-CC9 is a deleted record.
Agent 1:16 PM
If you cannot find the name of the father, then the child can be sealed to its grandparents.
You 1:16 PM
Have deleted the father's record correctly?
Agent 1:17 PM
Unfortunately, the child cannot be sealed to a mother only.
How should I indicate the mother was a single mother?
You 1:19 PM
Currently only found in notes on the son
Agent 1:20 PM
Go to the Help Center and look for an article entitled "Sealing a child to parents, when the name of the father is unknown"
You 1:21 PM
isn't there also a way on entering a child with "Unknown father"?
Agent 1:23 PM
No. You can add the name of the mother, but the child cannot be sealed to her. In the article quoted, there is a link to policies for sealing child to grandparents.
You 1:25 pm
How should I enter The father is unknown?
Agent 1:26 PM
Just type the word UNKNOWN in the field for father
You 1:30 PM
I did that and the system said it was an invalid name so I deleted it.
I wasted a lot of time research this and I don't want to redo it or have anyone else waste their time.. Is there a correct way of doing this?
maybe a system change my be required?
Agent 1:33 PM
Policies for sealing deceased children to adoptive parents, grandparents, or others (52716)
You 1:35 PM
Can this show up under system Hints?
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Can't there be a system indicator visible on the family tree that the father is unknown and the mother is single? (Without having to read the notes, if there are any notes...)
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LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: I attach the child to the single parent and not add another parent. To me that states that the other parent is unknown.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I have a similar situation and a lot of work have been done to determine the "one night stand" father of the child. At the present time, we are making sure the grandparents (her mother's parents) were deeply involved with the child so she can be sealed to them (the grandparents).

Without a father, and no adoption (which did not occur in my case), the line is broken. The policy is that the line is patriarchal in nature and therefore, a child cannot be sealed to any parents without the name of the father. It also breaks the line to any descendants of that child.

Amy is correct, do not add anything for the other missing parent. We are leaving the father's information blank with notes in the record. Further research will be performed to see if we can locate any kind of documentation that can help.

LegacyUser

Bruce Kent Salmond said: Can a marker or flag be added to a unknown father (like an a "* see notes")? Otherwise people who didn't read the notes will waste research time. I wasted about 4 hours or more.

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: I agree with Bruce Kent Salmond and his statement, "Can't there be a system indicator visible on the family tree that the father is unknown and the mother is single? (Without having to read the notes, if there are any notes...)."

It has been years since I worked on a certain family, and today in a Weekly FamilySearch changes to people you are watching this family comes up. I assume the mother with a child just hanging there, below her husband and family with 7 children, needs to be added to the main family, so I create a name for the father, just so I can add the hanging child to the main family.

It was not until after I had merged the hanging child back into the main family that I notice the marriage date and the date of the hanging child, and realized this was an "Add Child with an Unknown Father."

There needs to be UNKNOWN added in the fathers place automatically by the program, so one does not have to spend hours trying to figure why a mother has a hanging child.

LegacyUser

Juli said: No, the system should explicitly NOT add anything automatically. Ever.

I have an illegitimate great-grandmother with unknown father. Since I believe that there is no way I will ever find out who her father was, I want her father slot to stay completely empty: no "dummy" person, no "unknown", no placeholder of any kind.

LegacyUser

Paul said: The "system" has created unknown parents in the past and the result was not a good one. Thousands upon thousands of (mainly female) individuals named "?" and an ID beginning with a "4". If only I could have a pound / dollar for every "?" I have had to merge with the actual mother! Hours of wasted time because each of "John Smith's" fifteen children was given a separate ? / ID for an unknown mother.

I agree with Juli that if there is no known parent the field should be left blank. Okay, this is perhaps a different situation, but we don't need any more Unknown / ? individuals in the system - nor, do I believe, even any indicators, except by way of a note, on the Person page or in the Collaboration section.

Funnily enough, I came across an example of this just 30 minutes ago. A child with no father's name probably meant one of two things - she was illegitimate or the father had been "lost" in a merge. In this case, the attached source confirmed Elizabeth Wrightson was the illegitimate child's mother. Otherwise, I would have gone straight to the change log for any indication that the child's father had been detached during a merging process.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I would totally agree with Juli. This is regarded as best practice across genealogy.

However, it is incumbent on FS to educate its users in best practices. If not FS - who else?

Incidentally, no, I wouldn't say that it's incumbent on Ancestry, say, to educate its users in best practices - but that's different for several reasons:
- we enter stuff into our own trees on Ancestry without affecting others;
- we're not providing trees to Ancestry for Ancestry's own tree-linked purpose;
- Ancestry isn't making it close to a duty to enter trees.

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: I think an Unknown with no PID number, added by the system would be fine, until someone finds the fathers name. To me it is kinda dumb having all these mothers with hanging children.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: If the father is not known (as was the case for the relative I mentioned above), then leave his entry blank. Note that the child was not sealed to the biological mother, but to the mother’s parents.

Establish a relationship with those who were involved with raising the child. The child will have two sets of parents with one of them having the biological mother and nothing entered for the father.

The other set will contain at least the father who was involved in raising or supporting the child and a relationship between the two. Notes can help explain the situation to those looking at the record at some future date.

LegacyUser

m said: I have one (LDS lines) where there are 2 potential males.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Even more importantly, it shows that there was no COUPLE RELATIONSHIP there.

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: It takes a male and a female to create a child. Having a mother with a hanging child, is like saying the mother created the child without a male. FamilySearch could show Unknown male, and the Unknown male could have NO PID number until he is found.

Because I was merging, I created another male in the system, until I realized I was dealing with "Add Child with an Unknown Father." I now have the male that I created, as "Unknown."



I also added the hanging child as a step-child to the main family.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Usually, when the records all show a mother but no father, it is strongly indicative that there was no formal couple relationship between the father and mother. In this case you probably shouldn't be recording that there was a FORMAL COUPLE RELATIONSHIP between the mother and some unknown spouse as a fact until further information can be collected.

If a couple relationship is not known to have existed, it shouldn't be entered into the system indicating as a fact that such a relationship did exist.

Just because Parent-child relationships may exist between a child and two or more people that have served as that child's parents, it does NOT imply that a formal couple relationship existed between those parents. Creating a couple relationship between 2 people in the FT that never had a documented relationship should obviously not be done.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I think that we will have to agree to disagree on this one. To me, "Having a mother with a hanging child" is saying that the father is unknown. And having a PID with a name of Unknown is, I fear, not likely to deter someone who comes along and immediately merges Mr Unknown with John Norris.

We're really talking about several things here and one of them is how to represent stuff in the most defensive (?) fashion. I sympathize entirely with your motive - I just don't think it's as robust as you might hope.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Jeff - I think that I'd quibble with your "obviously not be done". Part of the problem is surely that FS doesn't have a clearly visible instruction (visible to all its users) about how to distinguish a couple relationship that we're pretty sure was formal but don't have the proof, from a couple relationship was ongoing but we're pretty sure was never formal, from a couple relationship that was a one night stand, from a couple relationship that we actually just haven't looked into yet!

I really think that the design is inadequate here.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Right. I really think that we want to try and avoid documenting "facts" that don't really exist. E.g., stating that there is some guy out there name'd "Mr. Unknown", or that a formal parenting relationship existed between Cynthia Harris and some undocumented spouse where they were raising William H Harris together.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Adrian, I stand corrected as there are MANY things on the FS website that are not "obvious" :-)

The following is my OWN opinion and I am definitely NOT speaking for the church, but this is how I see it.

Although not explicitly documented, it appears to me that the main part of the reason the FamilySearch FamilyTree exists is to provide "Family" specific documentation that can be used for the temple work of those individuals and families as it is to extend into the eternities. It seems to me that showing a one-night stand as a formal couple relationship ( i.e., if there is evidence of no long term "Family" type commitment) runs contrary to that intent.

However, we also have a long history in genealogy of recording these biological couplings as a formal couple relationship in areas that are not specific to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For example, in many legal situations involving things like parental responsibilities and inheritances, the child has claim on BOTH of the parents regardless of how long they were together. So traditionally, such relationships would be formally shown in a pedigree. This is what non-members or people who have just been doing genealogy for years would be most familiar with and assuming of when they come to work on the FSFT.

So there is a conflict of understanding as to which way this should be done. However, I think the design is adequate to handle this, even if it is undocumented.

Showing this type of biological-only relationship may be convenient for some pedigree charting techniquesand applications, but it is still redundant as far as the biological aspect goes. It's the child's biological relationship to each of those parents that establishes that fact, not the nature of the relationship relationship between that child's parents.

I other words, if no evidence of a long term type commitment between biological parents exists, then you just don't document a "couple relationship" of any type between the parents, but you do document the parent child relationships as all "biological" where it applies. This way both intents are covered. The only thing is that people who are not familiar with the goals of the church will need to be informed that they should not be showing formal couple relationships where they did not exist.

Either that or FS needs to add a new Couple Relationship type of "No Formal Commitment" or some such.

In any event the ability to handle all of those types of situations can currently be handled the way the system currently functions.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Slightly tongue in cheek - but perhaps not. It's pretty obvious to us that this person is unknown because we understand the English language. But what happens when other languages come in? How many people will imagine that Herr Unbekannt from Hamburg is a real person? Or Monsieur Inconnu from France?

Perhaps Juli has a story about an entry where the Hungarian for Unknown has been interpreted as a real name?

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Exactly! That's why putting something that you definitely KNOW is not a name (because you just made it up) into a name field just seems to be a bad practice.

And what happens if somewhere in the future FS decides to block the text "Unknown" (sort of like they do with the name "Infant" or "Baby"). All of a sudden the wonderful hacks that you are using all break.

Call a spade a spade. Put real names into name fields. It will always tend to work out for the better I believe

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: And there you encapsulate neatly the clash between your starting point, as a Church member, and mine as a non member. Doesn't mean that one of us is right and the other wrong.

My own personal preference would always be to record a formal relationship in IT terms between the two entities so that we can hang descriptions and notes on there. One of those descriptions could be: "No formal relationship known". I would always prefer the absence of a formal relationship in IT terms to mean "No information yet". As it is, it might mean, "No information yet" or "No formal relationship in real life" or "Long term informal" or "Short term informal"....

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Yes. That's one way to approach it, but the bigger issue is that a formal definition of each logical entity in the system needs to be defined, and then consistently maintained. The current thing called a "Couple Relationship" on the website is an associative entity that relates 2 adults together--person 1 and person 2. It does NOT require ANY children (i.e., third parties) at all as a justification for its existence. So what is this Couple Relationship thing anyway?

Traditionally it was used when a baby was born to identify the couple that gave birth to that baby. But you can't correctly use that anymore because the traditional definition of father and mother have evolved. Furthermore, in legal **** marriages it is just plain impossible to use that definition. So you have to assign a meaning to that associative object that applies consistently to all cases. That is why FS has learned that they can't call it a "Marriage" with marriage types of "not married" or "common law" or "****". It is a couple relationship that exists totally independent of whether or not children are involved.

Yes, you could add a relationship "type" of "no information available", but that is really a kind of hack in that you first say that there is a formal relationship there, but then need a flag to say "I lied, there really isn't any formal relationship here that we have information on" :-) Why put something in and then need a flag to show it is invalid. This is the same thing as putting a text such as "Unknown" in a name field. It's like assigning a name but doing it in a way that negates the fact that you just gave it a name. Why bother when an empty field tells you the same thing, requires no work to implement, and is pretty well universal in it's application and everyone already understands it?

Why create an associative entity saying there is a relationship between two people and then turn around and flag it saying that you don't really know anything about any relationship relationship other than they were both biological parents of the same child? The Parent-Child associative entities (relationships) ALREADY contain that information. Using a Couple relationship to document and imply the same thing is REDUNDANT and just adds complexity and extra development to the system.

But as you previously pointed out, what we minimally need is documentation that simply identifies how FS would like you to handle this kind of situation :-)

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: I think an option to mark a father as being unknown- not creating a person or PID, but indicating it to FSFT users, would be a good idea from a genealogical/non-LDS perspective. And it must surely also be beneficial for LDS ordinance purposes as it clarifies that the father is unknown and that the child has only a known (biological) mother.

Adrian's discussion on different languages reminds me of instances that I have seen the dutch "levenloos" (stillborn) being used a name, also "Burgerlijke Stand" (civil registry) as a place, but I don't think I have ever seen "onbekende" (unknown) being used as a name.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: That would definitely work better than a note that says the same thing.

LegacyUser

Juli said: Try this for "unknown" as a name:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...
(_Ismeretlen atya_ means "unknown father".)

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I could happily envisage entering details about a couple in an (informal) relationship with no children.

But as we agree, definition and documentation are needed.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Yup. Would have fooled me, that one! So presumably Janos Atya or Anna Atya aren't quite the children's names??? :-)

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: Still not convinced. The program or system looks broken with hanging children. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Add those who were involved in raising the child. See my post above.

By not showing the child with those who raised the child, you will continue to have a hanging child.

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: NOT SO, at least the program would look right. No hanging child! One could have the child attached to both biological (male & female) and guardian parents.

I know why FamilySearch wants it done this way, but to me the system looks broken, just having a mother with a hanging child.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Well, I am reminded of an old boss of mine who was fond of saying "Perception is Reality". If we (and FamilySearch who programmed it like this) can't convince Don, then maybe we do need a marker that would appear on diagrams that means "Parent or Parents have been researched but are unknown". Use of the marker(s) would need to cause the diagrams to balance up avoiding the "hanging" icon.

Under no circumstances should the marker generate a profile, record or PID. It must generate an icon on the diagram that looks totally different from a person.

I am totally unclear where the value of the marker should be held - presumably against the child in question, which then leads to issues about its maintenance if the child does get linked to a parent of the missing sort. Whatever that means.

It's one of these things that's easy to draw but is likely to be a ***** to design and program in a robust fashion. Given those difficulties and the fact that many users and FamilySearch presumably consider the existing method adequate, I can't see them giving any priority to this.