Great Grandchild Addition

We just got our 16th great grandchild, however, the mother (our granddaughter) is not married. The father of this child is not the person she was married to (divorce). We do not know the name of the father of this child. How do I show this child in the program? Can a partner or significant other title be created?
Thanks for the help.

Yes, a partner or significant other can be added without also adding a marriage fact. Simply go through the process of adding a “spouse”. Ignore that it’s called a “spouse” and then don’t add a marriage fact.

In your case, because you don’t know the name of the father you can simply add the child to the mother without entering a father at all. There can be a tricky element to not adding a father.

For example, you can highlight the mother and click on the + sign at the upper right of the screen to add a person. There will be a dropdown and click Add Child to add a child. In this case, at the top of the Add screen it will default to a father who is the divorced ex-husband. You should click on that box and you will be given the opportunity to choose instead the mother and another spouse. So choose that option even though you don’t know the “other spouse”. You won’t actually be adding the other spouse. Most RM screens will show the “other spouse” like there is somebody there in the father’s position who is is named “Unknown Spouse” rather than showing it as blank. But there really isn’t a father there. The Unknown Spouse will not be printed in reports.

When you are adding the child, it will probably default to a surname that’s the same as the divorced ex-husband. You will need to replace that Surname with the child’s actual surname.

Jerry, thank you so very much for your response and information.

You can also create and use a new Family Fact Type called something like “Partnership”. To do this, create a new family fact type, copy the sentence template from the Married template, paste to the principal role in the new template, and revise the template in the new template. Then you can simply add the new fact type for unmarried couples.

You should also tick the box Use description field.

What if the partnership ends? You should probably make a new Family Fact for that too.

I do have such a Partnership fact which does enable the Description field. Such a fact is relevant to the discussion if you know both biological parents and you want a fact for them that is different than the Marriage fact. If you only know one biological parent, you don’t really need a Partnership fact.

I always have a question in my mind whether to use my Partnership fact for unmarried couples or whether it is sufficient simply to enter them into RM as a couple while omitting the Marriage fact. If I know the couple lived together as a family, I enter a Partnership fact. If the couple never really lived together as a family but were just biological parents of the same child, I don’t enter the Partnership fact. Sometimes I don’t really know for sure which way to do it.