When you have a person with only one parent, and you add a note or a source (or media, a task or an address) to the “Parents” fact from the edit screen of the child, it does show for the child, but it shows none of the icons when you go to the parent’s edit screen. (In my case, the child is Eggart Manduvel and the parent in Eggert Manduvel
When you click on the source, the media, or the address you see what was added. However, if you click on the note, it shows an empty note and whatever you write in that note (even if you leave it empty) will overwrite the original note you wrote in the child’s edit screen.
First, a clarification: there is not really a Parents fact on the Edit Person screen. It looks like there is, but there isn’t. There is a Parents line, but the Parents line is not a fact. Even if there are two parents, the note or source or media that you enter on that line may not do what you think it’s going to do. What I’m talking about is not just a minor quibble of terminology. The information on the Spouse fact for the parents is the exact same information you see on the Parents line for the children. But the information is really just for the parents and is not for the children.
To say the same thing a different way: if you enter information on the Parents line for a person, doing so basically has no effect on that person. Instead, if you go to the Edit Person screen for one of the parents and look at the Spouse line, you will see the exact same information. Then if you run a report for the parent, you will see the information in the report. If you run a report for the child, you will not see the information in the report. It’s really information for the couple and not for the children, even if you enter the information on the Parents line for the children and even if you can see the information on the Parents line for the children.
That being said, I need to think about the situation when there is only one parent instead of two. I understand what you are saying and I see the same sort of thing as you do when I try testing. I’m not persuaded that RM is handling the note, source, etc. for the Spouse line exactly in the way I would expect when the spouse is an Unknown Spouse. But I keep coming back to the fact that that information on the Spouse line is for the spouses. It is not for the children, even though you can see it on the Parents line for the child in the child’s Edit Person screen.
I don’t see this as a bug. There just isn’t a spouse relationship when one parent is unknown. Not sure how we could block people from adding stuff there when there is no relationship. If you add items and later add a spouse those items will show correctly.
I’m not sure that I see it as a bug, either. But I’m also not sure that I don’t see it as a bug.
If notes, citations, or media are added to the Spouse line, there are not added to either spouse. Rather, they are added to a thing which RM calls a family. The thing which RM calls a family exists whether the family has two spouses or just the one. So notes, citations, and media could be added to a family with only one spouse. But the Edit Person screen doesn’t handle that situation very well, or at all.
Another way around the problem would be to enter a dummy person for the unknown spouse. But for whatever reason, I don’t like doing it that way.
