What do you put in the father’s space, if anything, when the father is a deadbeat and/or is not recorded on the birth record?
Unknown and “deadbeat” (rather derogatory). If “unknown” or no evidence to support you can leave blank. A “couple” that produce a child does not have to be married etc. I record facts as known and do my best to cloud with moral judgements etc. If known, I would add what I believe to be correct with evidence to support – the children may care to explore that at some point.
Kevin
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Thanks, Kevin!
I was thinking I would just leave the space blank. Maybe a note in the mother’s space until I had more concrete info. The family, mother and son, lived in Pittsburgh. Son was born Dec 1886.
David Cummings
King City
Thanks, Kevin. I’ll leave blank or “Unknown” for the surname. I have a request into the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh for the child’s birth record. We’ll see what that brings.
David Cummings
King City, OR
if I have a record they were married (or likely married by multiple records) I might add a person label “husband unknown” (as first/given name) or “wife unknown” then add a research note – I stopped using task because they do not show elsewhere well.
Kevin
Leaving a blank or using “Unknown” may have a similar practical effect. But they actually differ as follows. Leaving a blank does not add a new person to RM. Adding an “Unknown” actually does add a new person to RM and the newly added person has the name of “Unknown”.
I personally choose to leave a blank. But I’m not sure if there is a standard in that regard. And I’m not sure which approach is actually better.
As for using Unknown or leaving it blank, you need to decide how you want the reports to read such as Unknown and Sally Smith had kids or Sally Smith had kids.
Hope you can find a birth certificate–have you also tried looking for an obit for son , siblings and Mom–death certificate or even baptismal record–sometimes the only way you can figure out Dad is thru DNA–I would also check Mom in the 1900 census and beyond and see if she is marked as a widow — I would still check for a marriage as she may have married a cousin with the same family name. Also check wills/ probates-- could never find anything on hubby’s 4th g-grandma’s Tanner’s father until I found her widow’s pension for the War of 1812–Tanner was her mother’s last name and included in it was a copy of her father’s will where he stated she was his daughter that he had with his housekeeper ( her mother)–sometime answers show up in the strangest places..
I have used both unknown and leaving it blank- have also used ?–only problem is that you can end up with a lot of Unnown/ blank/ ? people–some on here have suggest using something like Unknown ( father of Ed Smith) or ? ( wife of John Berry)–Just a thought..
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Didn’t occur to me! I’ll leave it blank until I can determine whether a marriage occurred or not. A birth record I have requested (if there is one) should have some clues. I’ll post the outcome.
David Cummings
King City
I use Ancestry a lot so prefer ‘unknown’ as otherwise, in many cases, you keep getting hints wanting you to accept a later husband as the father - Ancestry even pencilling in that person in in green as a hint that will automatically add them to your tree if inadvertently agreed. I’ve seen a few tree where people add ‘Known unto God’ as the father! So many bad trees on Ancestry.
yeah, I would lean to leaving blank in most cases but it order to have certain facts you might need unknown
I prefer ? ? to unknown or things such as mnu for unknown maiden name. It is amazing what people will add as a surname.
Clarifying I was referring to adding unknown to “Given” name not surname
I would not add “unknown to surname” – I would leave blank. (I also hate those that add “_____”.)
Typically the “marriage or not” has nothing to do with it. If the father is known, then the father is the father even if there was not a marriage. In the case of no marriage, just enter the father and don’t enter a marriage. if you want to emphasize things, you can even enter a note to the effect that there was no marriage.
Yes, that’s true. Thanks for the reminder!
David Cummings
King City
Leave it blank.
A pet peeve of mine is people who add Mrs. John Smith when the mother is unknown.
I have always used a single ? never thought about just typing ‘unknown’
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There is nothing wrong with Mrs. John Smith if the mother’s name is unknown, especially when the marriage date is in vital records without a name for the wife. It can also be the woman is noted as being married with the father missing. I often use ? preceded by three underlines and followed by three underlines for a missing man or woman. That way there is no doubt I am referring to an unknown given or surname. Known could be used as is mnu for an actual surname to someone using another language. It took me awhile to figure out what mnu (maiden name unknown) meant when I first started my genealogy endeavor. Obviously a missing father can have three underlines ? three underlines when the father is the one unknown as I described for the mother as a possible approach. This convention works whether or not the couple ever married.
I use an unusual convention with 10 underscore characters __________ to make it visually obvious in sorting, search (and replace), charts and reports. The additional benefit is that sharing reports or charts in electronic or printed form allows for the recipient or responder to have a fill-in-the blank placeholder for feedback or their own means of adding detail.
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It’s really best to just leave the part of the name unknown blank. If they only appear in records as Mrs. John Brown then use that because that is their name of record, until you learn more. If you learn their first name use that without a surname. There are so many variations on how people want to record the unknown with characters and questions marks and this article addresses many of them and why you don’t want to do that.