I use RM 10 and link my Ancestry data. I have both the biological father and stepfather correctly listed in Ancestry yet RM 10 has the stepfather as biological. How do I change him to the stepfather?
Editing a person
3.Parents
Relationship to father – select the relationship between the person and the father, from Birth, Adopted, Step, Foster, Related, Guardian, Sealed, or Unknown
You can mark the type of relationship in RM, such as stepfather. But having done so, RM doesn’t do very much with the data. For most (maybe all?) RM reports, a biological father and a stepfather look the same reports. Similarly, I don’t think the type of relationship is transferred between RM and Ancestry via TreeShare, but I don’t know for sure.
Also, does Ancestry operating alone support indicating a biological father vs. a stepfather? I don’t know for sure, but I have never seen the distinction in Ancestry.
Hi Jerry and thanks for responding. In Ancestry on the top right of the child you can click on edit and a drop down is edit relationship and then you can select step father. Apparently that info doesn’t pass over to RM when using the Ancestry link. FYI, I still haven’t figured out how to edit in RM despite reading the instructions.
Thank for that response but when I clicked on the 2 and despite many attempts at following the instructions I can’t find where I can alter the parent relationship. Would you please spoon feed me more?
OK, I finally made the change on the child’s parents to have the one parent be a stepfather. Now the child has two sets of parents with her mother being the same but one father being a stepfather and the other being a biological father. Is the child having two sets of parents the correct listing?
Yes, and when both blood parents are shown together onscreen, any charts, reports and lists generated (in that context) will reflect actual blood lines.
I am missing something in this thread. Perhaps Im not not understanding the question.
I would do the following:
For the mother of the targeted subject, add both spouses. If she has children by both men, add them to the correct set of biological parents. Anyone looking at the database can easily tell who is the biological father and the mother’s second husband would be obvious as the step father. Is there a need to define the stepfather relationship? I like to use notes to explain more complicated issues, like details about the step-parent and a child relationship,
In this case the child’s situation isn’t as straightforward as her mother having two husbands. The mother had only one husband who was the child’s stepfather because DNA showed the child was fathered by a different person. Ancestry enabled me to show the DNA trail but when transfering the data to RM it became complex for me. Anyway, I’m probably the only one who cares about the distinction.
What about adding a second partner to the mother, either unknown or possibly the father’s name if known. You do not have to call the partnership a marriage. Some of these situations are better left unsaid. Personally I might just add the child to the mother and stepfather. You might explain in the child’s general or birth fact note what you want others to know.