Multiple parents

RootsMagic
1

Is there a way to identify people who have multiple fathers/mothers?

2

Do an Advanced Search. The criterion would be Number of Sets of Parents => greater than => 1

You could also use the same criterion to make a group of all such people or to color code all such people.

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3

Thanks. I got a list. Is there a way to print the list or just pull each one up an add a task to the person?

4

Publish-> Reports and Charts->Individual List->List Type->Multiple Parents

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5

hi,
thanks for this Information
I have ca. 500 Persons with more multiple parents
what is the best way, to merge this?
manually I had to unlink separately all children first ; up to 7 unknown/wrong parents with 16 children

thanks for your help

6

Well, if the multiple parents are not the same people, there is nothing to merge, as when a person has both birth parents and adoptive parents. So I’m assuming you have multiple parents for a person and that the multiple parents are really the same persons.

This is surely one of the most asked questions on the RM forums if not the single most asked question. It’s hard to give a simple answer because the answer depends a bit on the exact situation. But basically there are three steps.

  1. Identify the people with multiple parents. You are already working on that part.
  2. If the multiple parents are really duplicate people in your RM data base, like John Doe born about 1850 and John Doe born 12 Dec 1849 are really the same person, then merge the duplicate people. To that end, you need to turn on the display of the RIN numbers (Record ID Numbers) to see if the duplicate parents are really the same person or not.
  3. Relink the children. This is where it is really hard to give a general process of how to do it because it depends. You unlink the the child from the wrong parents and link them to the correct parents. Except I prefer to do it in the other order, linking the child to the correct parents and then unlink them from the incorrect parents. If you have a very specific situation for one particular child to ask about, the best way to get advice about that particular situation is to post the details of that situation.

For example, a typical situation is that the same couple has two children, except that it looks like the couple has been married twice and one of the child is linked to one marriage and the other child is linked to the other marriage. Well, the couple is not really “married twice”. Rather, they are linked to each other twice as spouses, which sounds like they are married twice but not really. The couple is just linked two different families but where both families have the same spouses. So link one of the children to the other family, unlink that child from the first family, and unlink the couple from the family that now has no children. You will be left with one couple who has two children. It can be very tricky.

7

MULTIPLES where:

  1. One set of parents contains a “known to be wrong” Spouse and 16 children can be most expeditiously handled by right-clicking on the “known to be right” parent and then choosing Unlink from Spouse (rather than 16 Unlink from Parents, etc.). “Known to be wrong” could include either Named or Unknown spouses.

  2. Two or more sets of both parents duplicated but “known to be right” and showing “all known children” can be most expeditiously handled by right-clicking either parent from a duplicate set and choosing Unlink family members.

8

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ok
I understand right; I have 2x11 to unlink the siblings, if I want to remove the wrong mother GREINACHER

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and after this I can add the correct Mother NEHER in Browser ?

9

If I’m understanding your aim, merely right-click on Christian and Unlink from Spouse. Greinacher remains in the database, but is no longer related to those children, nor their father. Then add Neher as Spouse (and mother of those 11).

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10

I would like to suggest that you always do a backup before you start linking and unlinking Also it is advisable to write down the RIN number of each family member before changing anything. Sometimes it makes sense to write down how you want the family to look on a piece of paper with RIN numbers next to each name. Then methodically unlink and relink as needed.

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