Step Children - Other Marriages
Folks, leave children on their biological groups. Don't add them twice in their parents second marriages. In a case like this, it creates confusion in the system if the step parent is close to the childrens ages. Just leave people on their biologigal groups. It's much easier and proper.
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avoid "robotic genealogy" …. For example, I have seen cases where an infant child from a first marriage (who was deceased prior to the 2nd marriage) be added to the second marriage as a child, sometimes labeled as "step" and other times not.
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I would dispute that leaving step-children out is "proper". Nor does it create confusion in the system. It might cause confusion to those people who don't actually read stuff, but I'm not sure that their potential confusion should dictate my research. (My assumption is that normally the children are marked up correctly as "step", if they aren't then that's where the flaw lies)
Whether or not step-children should be included in a family seems to be a matter of personal preference rather than any robust principles. This means that some will include them and some won't. I think that we should respect the researcher's preferences.
In my case, I only add step-children if there is a social / historical reason to do so. For instance, my GG-GF married 3 times. I don't show his 2nd wife as a stepmother to the children from the first family as there is no evidence that they ever lived together. To include them, even marked as step-children, is pointless and historically misleading, in my opinion.
In the case of the family shown by @StephenDespot , I do raise an eyebrow at the absence of any "step" legend on the diagram, plus, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I would have thought that the pre1950 "children" were unlikely to have had a domestic relationship with their supposed stepmother, hence are good candidates for omission.
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To me this is about the difference between family history and just documenting biological relationships, so I agree with @Adrian Bruce1. The FS user interface's handling of relationships is the real problem here imo though.
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I'm not saying to exclude them. I have several multiple marriages in my family but I keep the children on the biological groups they are on. If you go on someones profile and see they had three or four marriages, the biological children are in those groups. You don't need to add them 3 or 4 more times to show them under the step parents. They are already accounted for in the biological groups and people SHOULD be reading instead of just clicking and adding. There again is another topic that tends to be an issue is the failure to read what is already out there and I assume that may be lack of experience on some.
Seeing them in their biological groups and parents multiple marriages, you already know they are called step children at some point.
Example, my grandmother and her second cousins were step siblings later on in life after her father married his cousins widow. I did not add my grandmothers second cousins in the list as step-siblings. You already see them on my great grandfathers second wife when you look at her profile of her and the first marriage she had. Besides, being that they were already blood relatives, adding them like that would really throw off the system.
In my opinion, it's only necessary to show them on the biological groups. You have your history documented already via the marriages of each.
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First, a SIDENOTE:
In the example above, the youngest child is improperly named. Quotation marks, parenthesis, periods (aka full-stops), etc. are not to be used. Nicknames and aliases do not belong in the “Vitals” section. Instead they are to be recorded as an “Alternate Name” in the “Other” section.
Reference:https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-to-enter-names-in-family-tree
Back to the subject at hand:
To reiterate and expand upon what was said by @Adrian Bruce1 and @MandyShaw1 …It is only confusing if the relationships are not properly marked. In the example above, all the children should be marked as “Step - Melvina Alberta Skinner”
Instructions:I too usually only add step relationships if there is documentation that the stepparent lived under the same roof when the stepchild was under 18 years of age.
I always add step relationships when the documentation indicates the step parent raised the child as if their own. Especially when when a biological parent dies or is otherwise not involved in raising the child (e.g. a deadbeat parent).
Example:
In 1913, Antonia, who was already sick, travels to Italy with her 2 U.S. born children (ages 2 and 4).
In October 1918, Antonia dies.
In January 1921, the children were brought back to the U.S. by Giulia.
7 days after arriving in the U.S., Giulia married their father (most likely an arranged marriage).
Giulia is the one who raised them from at least ages 9 and 11, and possibly starting 2 years prior when their mother died.
As such, Giulia was a significant part of the children's lives and therefore deserves to be recognized as their stepmother.
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As far as that whole group goes, I didn't actually do any of that research from those points out. I only noticed it because one of the individuals in that family group is married into my branches and I am following that person, one of many follows, and the notification came up on the changes. I immediately saw what had been done and just had disagreements on how it was all put together like that.
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What you said there is a very careless mistake. That's a case where people should be paying better attention to the stuff already done and researched. I got one worse than that even. Someone attached a spouse to a person on my branches who had died when he was two years old and all that information was right out there attached and sourced. Not hard to miss that you would think but it was.
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I think using the "step" or "biological" relationship tags is especially helpful in situations where the child takes the stepfather's name. Or maybe the census taker didn't realize that one or more child was from a previous marriage and gave them the wrong surname.
Adopted children could appear in two groups if they choose to research both family lines.
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I have one where a cousin accepted his step dads name over his biological father so some records show step dad versus biological and some people attached him to wrong records due to that. I've had to correct that.
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Of course people do need to LOOK at the relationship tag too! I think it's pretty easy to see.
It's really the only way to figure things out when people use other names. 🙂
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Yes, definitely pay attention. Or, another suggestion, if you don't know those families, then your best odds are to not do anything with them. They may already be someone elses project with someone who does or did know them. I know I'm not always on the same group or branch 24/7 because I have others I might be working on or involved with at the time. I might be off a certain area two years before I go back to it. That doesn't mean it's been for gotten, it just means another branch is a higher priority at the time.
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