Can someone assist me with attaching a child to one spouse because the other spouse is the step parent in RM8?
Highlight the parent and click Add Child. On the top of the Add Child screen open the “Parents of child” drop list and select that parent and another spouse. That will add them as a single parent with a child. You will need to switch to the family view with the unknown spouse to see them.
Thank you for your feedback. This is my situation:
- I have Jane Doe who has two children as a single mom. (I added both children under Jane Doe and and another spouse).
- Jane Doe married Mark Smith. (When asked do you want to add the spouse to the existing family that has the 2 children I responded no since Mark Smith is not their biological father).
Now this is where my issue begins: - Mark Smith also has a child who is not Jane Doe’s. How do I add his child without it showing that his child is Jane Doe’s child?
- Next I need to add children that Jane Doe and Mark Smith have together.
@Clarece —as for the kids Mark and Jane’s had together–just use add child on their family page–as for the child that Mark had with another person-- with Mark highlighted on the family page with Jane, click on Spouse ( box on left hand side below his name) and you will see where you can ADD another spouse
This will bring up a box that will let you add a new person or select an existing person-- if you don’t know the name of the other mother put something like Given unknown or ? Surname ? ( mother of Dave Smith)—once you have the mother in there, add the child to that page
@nkess
Thanks. This method allowed me to input the children and step child. However when I view it in Publish or print it, the step child is not showing up; only the biological children.
Children would need to be in the same family group to show up. If you were doing descendants of a person they would need to be showing as their children with another spouse.
@Clarece Yes that is correct because RM does NOT support non-traditional families such as step-parent/ step-child, adoption etc BUT with a little tweaking you can get at least some of the reports to show the step-children along with the biological kids…
1st make sure you backup your file
Then go to the family page for Mark Smith and Jane Doe
and add his kids by the other spouse
( use the add child box and SELECT EXISTING PERSON )
then add her kids by the other spouse
DO NOT PUT THE KIDS IN CHRONOLOGICAL BIRTH ORDER
leave their kids 1st, then his other kids, then her other kids…
once all the kids are done, you can if you want go to the each of his kids
and change Jane to step-mother and do the same for Mark and his step-kids-- it’s NOT going to have any real effect since RM does NOT support these type of family relationships BUT will show up on Ancestry if you upload a tree…
I would also suggest that you add a customized fact of step-parent/ step child ( or you can do one for step-mom, step dau etc)–suggest you do NOT share the fact as other programs such as Ancestry do no support shared facts…
Make sure to check use description field when making the fact–
fact sentence would read like this ( just change step-father to any of the others)
[Person] was the Step-Father of [desc]< [Date]>< [PlaceDetails]>< [Place]>.
Then go to Publish build your report – SAVE as a TEXT or WORD Doc— edit it by putting your own customized sentence between their kids and his kids-- then another
customized sentence between his other kids and her other kids–see bold statements in the shot below-
Thank you Nancy. This helps.
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