Under the marriage event option there needs to be an option for out of wedlock events.

LegacyUser

Anne Erickson said: My great-grandmother had a child out-of-wedlock before her first marriage. This child was not from the person she married. I have her listed under her biological father's name but other people keep changing it back to her step-parent's name. Need some way to accurately record the event. Right now, I'm using the lived with event which is not at all accurate.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: You have my sympathies... Have you been able to add a date for the marriage? Or are people ignoring that?

Frankly, if it were me, on my home database, I'd give her two sets of parents:
1. Her biological parents;
2. Her biological mother and her step-father.

If that were possible in FamilyTree, then those who just see the post-marriage census (or whatever) wouldn't see an issue.

Please note that I'm not a Church member so questions of which people are appropriate parents is beyond me.

LegacyUser

Juli said: FamilySearch supports multiple parents per person. Next time someone puts the child under the stepfather, leave it, but edit the relationship and set the type to "step". Then add the relationship to the biological father back in.

Here's an example of the second husband adopting the three boys from the first husband:
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/per...

If the biological father and the mother had no formal relationship, you can add the biological father separately. Here's an example with a mother not connected to any father for her first child; you can do the same thing with the sexes reversed:
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/per...

LegacyUser

Jordi Kloosterboer said: I would have a parent set of just the biological father by himself and then the other parent set as the biological mother and the step/adoptive father. Make sure to set the relationship types for each and put down explanations. This should help other people understand what is going on and leave it as you put it.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Here's an example of how you might handle this:



Note that in this case, Cecil's birth surname was Thurman (i.e., her mother's maiden name). But Cecil was formally adopted by her step father Joseph and hence ended up with his surname of Santee.

Also since there was never a formal "couple relationship" between Cecil's biological parents, they are not recorded as a couple (i.e., they both don't show up together in the couple Relationship box.

LegacyUser

Juli said: Yes, exactly! I could only provide "bracketing" examples, but yours is spot-on.