I’ve reviewed the RM Wiki and the community comments on this topic. However, I still can’t figure out how to record an adoption of child in RM 11. Please list all necessary steps/screens so I can get this correct.
After you enter a person and have entered their parents, in the Person’s Edit screen, select their parents and it will have the relationship to father & mother. Change to reflect the relationship.
1 Like
The fundamental thing that’s hard to get your head around is that entering an adopted child is for all intents and purposes exactly the same as entering a biological child. That seems just wrong, somehow or other. But that’s the way it works.
There are two things you can then do to make a distinction. The first is the thing descried by maddog where you flag the relationship as an adoptive one. But RM actually very little with the information and in my experience the distinction does not show up in RM’s narrative reports. The other thing you can do is to add an Adoption fact. That does show up in RM’s narrative reports. But the initial data entry for the child is still the same. The relationship flag and the Adoption fact are entered after the child is entered.
1 Like
To add to what Jerry and MadDog are saying-- on the adoption fact , I would checkmark description other wise your fact will just say for example Marcus Rome ( or He) was adopted on July 7 1845 in London England..
Using something like this in the sentence
[person:Given:Surname] <[desc]> < [Date]>< [PlaceDetails]>< [Place]>.
will let you add as much or little info as you want under description such as Marcus Rome was adopted by Bob Lee and Sally Acorn blah blah
or
Marcus Rome son of Geo Rome and Sandra Dee, Marcus was adopted by Bob Lee and Sally Acorn blah blah…
As for as reports go, the reports that include parents or ancestors will only show the info from one set of parents NOT both Unless the child was adopted by his step parent such as step father and you are running the report for the mother-- either way the report shows as if the adopted child is the biological child of the couple…
To get the right report when both parents adopted a child, you have to make sure you have the right set of parents showing
The only report I know of that will show both sets of parents is the Kinship List–in the case of Marcus Rome above, he would have 2 fathers, 2 mothers, 8 grandparents etc and a whole slew of aunts and uncles-- like step kids, RM allows you to mark a person as adopted BUT doesn’t distinguish adopted/step from biological…
my Aunt (or half aunt technically speaking ) is done this way. My Father did not know hist oldest sister was really is half sister (or through his mother). Although I strongly suspected I did not prove this until after his death. The birth given name was different which I later found.
The birth father was just that (in 1920s).