Additioinal relationship type needed.

LegacyUser

John Frederick Nohea Waldron said: I am a service missionary at the Logan Familysearch Library doing email support in my spare time. An email patron requested the addition of "godparent" to the drop down arrow options to relationship types. I referred patron to attached articles 54088 and 72009 in my email and for now suggested "Gardianship" relationship so solve her question. Case # 02445984.

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Ron Tanner said: I don't recommend this. We currently do not support these type of relationships. By doing it this way the system will believe that the godparent is a real parent which will appear as a parent in the pedigree and on the person page. This would be no genealogically correct as they were not the biological or a guardian. This relationship should be documented in the Other Information category at this time until we have something to handle this.

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Tom Huber said: Yes. The relationship "godparent" applies to a religion related (primarily Catholic, Church of England (Episcopal in America)) rite when an infant is baptized. The godparents represent a non-related influence on guiding the child as they grow into adulthood.

If you want to do it, add the godparent under "Godfather" or "Godmother" in the "Other Information" of the person page for the individual. Ancestral Quest has this ability.

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Angelo Longo said: I've recently begun to work on adding baptism records from the Catalog to Family Tree, so I decided to add godfathers and godmothers to Family Members. I've decided to do so because I know the importance that they still have today for godchildren in southern Italy, even if the catholic 1983 Code of Canon Law abolished their conception as “spiritual parents”, an ancient tradition that was received by the 1917 Code of Canon Law. In the 19th century I've even found some instances of children taking last names of godfathers instead of those of natural fathers, even if the latter ones were present in the records!

I was thus very surprised to not find godparents between Parent Relationship Types, and I had to use the more similar type of “Step Parents”. So my ancestors now have a “Step – Father” and a “Step – Mother” in addition to their natural parents instead of a “Godfather” and a “Godmother”.

I would then strongly suggest to add them to the list of options.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Again, this all really leads to the fact that we only have an implied definition of "Parent" that currently exists in the system (i.e., no formal definition). It currently seems to be based on a PHYSICAL relationship with someone who is actually committed to and raising a particular child and has the legal responsibility for them per current government laws.

If a godparent actually falls into this category, then a legal physical relationship type of adoptive, guardianship, foster, or step would already cover the situation. Relationship types have typically been physical relationships and not "spiritual" ones.

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Angelo Longo said: I get your point. If no “Godparent” category is added I think I will go on with “Step Parent”, because I think that includes godparentship in being a non-legal statement of physical proximity in everyday children life. In my life experience in Sicily, even if they don't live under the same roof, godparents still see children at least very often and feel responsible for their social, not only religious education.

I would also remark how influential was catholic tradition even to secular law in southern Italy, at least until the admission in the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Even after that godparents had a strong influence in the upbringing of children (so much that “spiritual parentship” was part of Canon Law from 1917) until today, even if it's a waning social custom.

Read what author Rebekah Rojcewicz wrote in “Baptism is a Beginning”, Liturgy Training Publications, 2009: «In earlier times the role of godparent carried with it a legal responsibility for the child, should they become orphaned. Today, being a godparent is not legally binding and carries no legal rights, although godparents may also serve as legal guardians for children if this arrangement is documented in a valid will» (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godpare...).

I'd also like to cite a catholic site for moms: «the truth is, being a godparent shouldn’t be limited to religious instruction. In most cases, godparents are chosen to act almost as secondary parents; a support system for your little one, and for the adolescent and adult that he or she will become in the future. Being chosen as a godparent is a great honor, and it is also an immense responsibility. Normally, parents choose their child’s godparents based on friendship, reciprocity, or even as a result of social pressures. In some cases, these are valid reasons. But when the time comes to choose the godparents of your children, you should ask yourselves if the people you are choosing can really provide what you really want for our children. Godparents should be people we can really trust and who are truly ready and willing to accept the responsibility of making a life-long commitment to being part of your child’s life» (https://youaremom.com/children/role-g...).

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Cindy Hecker said: Adding a Godparents as any form of parent, step Parent or Guardian is not correct genealogically. Did you read Ron Tanner's reply in this thread above. He is one of the heads of FamilySearch and his guidance is that it is not correct. Add them in other information. It is confusing to add a 2nd parent when the child never lives with them. A god parent has a role as a loving family member like an uncle or aunt but we do not add them as parents either.

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Jeff Wiseman said: Angelo,

That is really interesting. Since it was basically part of the law at one time and was such an important relationship, I can see why you would want to document it as a formal relationship instead of just a note.

If you insist on showing a formal relationship here, I would suggest the following then (just my opinion here). Go ahead and show the formal relationship in the FamilyTree as one of the child's "parents". However, the Step-Parent relation, by definition, says that one of the child's parents married the god-parent after the child was raised in part by the other formal parent. Obviously, in nearly all circumstances this is just plan wrong.

So instead, unless there was a formal adoption, step-parenting, or foster parent known to have existed, I would use the more general "Guardianship" relation type with a note or custom fact added to clarify it. Since we know the god-parent really wasn't a step parent, but DID have Guardianship responsibilities, it seems like a more appropriate type of parent-child relationship to document in this case (if you actually do create a formal parent-child relationship there).

However Ron has advised against it. in his comment above

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Jeff Wiseman said: Also, as Ron hinted at, if you put that relationship in as a formal one, Ordinances ready can pick that up and have the child sealed to the god-parent, even if they never lived together

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Angelo Longo said: OK Cindy, of course I respect Bro. Tanner's recommendation and I can delete the godparents I added as step parents, until of course this policy changes! Maybe in the future they could be added to Family Members without appearing in the pedigree, but however I still have to point out (just to understand more) that uncles and aunts appear in the person's page, as well in the pedigree of parents!

Thank you Jeff, I like the “Guardianship” proposal! Let's see how this will develop... I also thank you for the interesting remark about Ordinance Ready. In the “Ordinances” tab however I can't seal a person with the “step parents” I added even if I wanted to do so, I tried just to check it out!

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Angelo Longo said: Now I'd like to bring you all an interesting case, brace yourselves...

Name: Eugenio Boscarini
Father: Antonino Gentile
Mother: Antonina Carruba
Godfather: Sebastiano Boscarini

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...

How is one supposed to deal with it?

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: So this must be one of the examples that you referred to as a case where the child takes on the name of the godfather instead of the biological father. Great example to help me to think outside the box when it comes to names :-)

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Tom Huber said: I’m curious about the comment, “I can’t seal a person with the step parents...”

If one or more persons married a biological parent, and helped raise the child, then they should be sealed as step parents.

Were you attempting to seal a person to “parents” as step parents and there was no option to do so?

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Juli said: So is there later evidence of Eugenius using the surname Boscarini, or is it possible that the name in the margin is simply an error? I notice that the form itself doesn't specify the child's surname, implying that it was not considered a choice or question under normal circumstances, i.e. taking the godfather's surname was not normal.

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Angelo Longo said: It happened in GQRT-B3Z, but thinking about it I've understood that the reason the godfather and godmother I added as “Step Parents” can't be sealed to that person is that they were not a couple, but his uncle and grandmother.
So at the moment I will delete the relationship and temporarily add them to the “Other Information” category, as you suggested. I will also wait for the future creation of a “God Parents” option that will let me show them on the person page in “Family Members” section, but not in the pedigree or “Ordinances” tab.

LegacyUser

Angelo Longo said: Surely taking the godfather's surname was an exceptional event even for those times.
Unfortunately I can't find any later record regarding Eugenio (Italian form of Latin “Eugenius”) Boscarini or Gentile. I have to wait for my meetinghouse to reopen to take a look at least at his birth certificate because older records like this one can be accessed only from FHCs due to an agreement with the Italian State Archive.

Cesar Adriel Airaldo Boniardi

I just want to add another perspective in favor of roles godfather/godmother: ancestry research.

If we were able to relate other roles with respect to a person (such as godfather and godmother, but they could also be others), that would allow us to have clues to further investigate the relationships between people.

From a personal point of view, I can say that on several occasions I have been able to clear up doubts regarding a certain kinship, linking records through the name of the godparents, thus, convincing myself that I was talking about the same person.