Genealogy Chat

Let me say from the outset that with this thread I do not wish to upset anyone in anyway whatsoever so here goes. I see that on the GR family tree it refers to 'partner' without giving any options. I feel that people should be given the choice of having a husband or wife, not partner on the tree if that is their choice. Maybe I'm an old fuddy-duddy but having been married for more than 55 years I have a husband, and I am his wife. The 2 family tree programmes I have used refer to husbands and wives, not partners. I have emailed GR about this and they state they will look into it. As stated I do not mean to offend anyone but I do feel most strongly about this and wonder if any other GR members feel the same.

Stardust I agree with you, the PC brigade strike again! They try not to offend unmarried people & end up offending married ones. btw, congratulations on your long marriage. Angela

I think I know what you mean, I too am married but it is sign of things to come. In 20-30 years time people will be searching for there parents or grandparents who never married. It is going to be a lot more difficult for them!! Just think no more BMD's just B& D's. Betty

Had just assumed that partner was to be interpretted as 'marriage partner' - had never considered it as being PC or nonPC Jay

As large numbers of my ancestors (and one of my own children) have been busily contributing to the family tree without being husband and wife it would be inaccurate to describe them as such. Accordingly 'partner' covers it quite nicely. Having said that I do have some ancestors who attempted to compensate by marrying bigamously several times. Many of us keep getting asked on a regular basis for our 'Christian' names. For those who don't have one it's irritating but hardly worth making a scene over. Time this nation lightened up a little. Denis.

And of course, if you add a marriage date, it becomes quite obvious that you ARE husband and wife. But - congratulations on such a splendidly long marriage. OC

Perhaps the best and fairest way for Genes to resolve this (yeah, right!!) would be for a drop down option box to be added - this will then make it clear whether or not it was husband/wife or partners. You should be rightly proud of such a long marriage - well done!

Agree with snowdrops on this. It's a waste of time looking for marriage records for an unmarried couple so if we given an option of stating married/unmarried partners we'd save ourselves a bit of hassle.

The GEDCOM format supports the use of 'not married' in place of a marriage date. I've no idea whether it can be entered directly into a GR tree, but it can certainly be imported. It is also not necessary, when importing records, to have two parents for illegitimate children; and no bogus birth date is required for the unknown partner.

I totally agree with jeanie, there should definitely be an option to state whether or not 2 people were married or 'Living In Sin' (!) and an option for people born out of wedlock. This would help me a great deal as i have discovered a startling amount of my tree were quite randy little buggers!!! Carole (via Susan)

I do not know the problem on GR tree but do have a FTM tree which allows a partner to be added - the marriage making them husband and wife is only true if place and date of marriage is added. In the case of an illegitimate child the name of father is UNKNOWN or similar, generally a note can be added to that effect. I think the word Partner covers all contingencies and only comes to light in the case of children without known fathers or where a couple are 'living in sin' and have created children.

Surely partner covers all eventualities (even Dennis' bigimist ancestors) since the married ones will have a date of marriage - and the others with a less formal arrangement, will not! Victoria

It think the word partner is simply used in this instance to denote another half of a pair. the date of the marriage does note that they were married (ie husband and wife) ,so actually better than the standard option , which alows for those of us that have unmarried couples and have difficulty defining this