Genealogy Chat

Im having a confusing time adding remarriages to the family tree on the site...

In onc instance it has copied my mother so there are 2 instances of her (both showed as "copy") the 2 marriages are then seperate instances (1 from each copy) with a child born from each - this all makes sense to look at.

I tried this with another relation, this time however it did not copy the person..it displays the 2 marriages as if the 2 male partners are married and the kid descending from the 2 fathers. this is confusing and not very clear at a glance.

am i doing something wrong?

I have exactly the same experience on my tree, and have also seen it on another tree to which I have access. I have queried it with GR and I am sorry to say that the response was a 'shrug of the shoulders' .

I have been told at different times that both are correct and nothing can be done about it if I don't like it.

Sorry to be so negative, but I think you will find - like most members have, that customer/technical support is not much good on GR. Pity because it's generally good otherwise.

I can't say I can get too worked up about this. If you have only entered a name once then GR doesn't make a copy, it is just the way the display works. I keep all my master records on FTM and even this will show certain names twice in some of the reports.

Do make sure though that you have added the details correctly.

You can add more than one partner to a relation and you can attach different children to those specific partners.

When viewing the Family Tree page you can pick which relation you wish to add the partners to. Click on that relation and you will see their details in the box below. Select 'add partner' and fill in the boxes. Once you have added the details you can save the changes.

If someone in your tree has more than one partner and you have added a child to the wrong parent, you can correct this. When viewing the child's details in your tree you will see the 'edit tools' tab. Click on this and in the drop-down menu select 'change parents'. You can then save the changes you have made.

I have added all the details correctly and the children to the correct parents, however when viewing the tree the child is shown descending from the 2 fathers, rather from the mother and respective fathers.

Also the change parents option does not appear on mine.

I agree it looks a bit odd, but that's the way the display works. All the males show on the left and the females on the right, with a single pair of lines connecting them all. So the children of the left hand father look as though they are descended from him and the other father, when in fact it means the left hand father and the common partner.

If you select the one or other of the fathers, you will see the children descended from their correct parents.

Programs such as FTM get round this by showing the descendants coming from the mother, rather than from a line between the two parents.

The Change parent option doesn't always work, especially if you have been moving up and down the family. programming logic looks as though it need tidying up a bit. If you refresh the tree then it appears when you select a child with the option of different parents.

Yes, this is a problem with GR. One way to get round it is to show the common spouse twice (i.e. as two separate persons) and add a note to each of the two entries to the effect that they are in fact the same person. On a standalone program such as Family Historian there is provision for multiple spouses, and on the tree display the common spouse may show up in different places but with a special line linking them to show they are the same. But it tends to go haywire if you then upload your gedgom file to GR.

Allan C - you are describing a different problem i.e. the marriage of cousins, etc multiple relationships where you must enter names twice.

Alun's issue is with the way GR's display deals with a person having two or more partners or spouses. GR can handle the data ok i.e. without having to enter duplicate names, it is just that the screen display looks a bit odd, unless you understand what it means.