I seem to be having issues getting Rootsmagic 7 to list my mother’s biological parents. Her parents died when she was 3 and went to live with a relative. I have the relative listed as guardian - relative and yet when I look at the data in family it lists the relative as mother and father. What am I doing wrong?
Typically in this situation, a person will have two sets of parents listed. In your mother’s case it would be her biological parents and also her guardian parents - assuming you entered the data that way.
In views such as the main Family View and the main Pedigree View, you can only show one of the two sets of parents at a time. You can switch from one set of parents to the other in those views. Is that what you are having trouble with?
The other possibility is that when you add a set of “parents” in RM you can mark the “parentage” as Birth, Adopted, Step, Foster, Related, Guardian, Sealed, or Unknown. But even if you mark your mother’s guardian parents as Guardian, RM doesn’t do very much with the information. For example, they will still show as Father and Mother on the Family View screen.
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“In views such as the main Family View and the main Pedigree View, you can only show one of the two sets of parents at a time. You can switch from one set of parents to the other in those views. Is that what you are having trouble with?”
Yes this is what my problem is. How to select which parent to show.
The choice is made using the upper half of the left sidebar.
- While you are in Family view in the main part of the screen, make sure the person with multiple spouses is in the Father or Mother position and is highlighted. Family view does not support the Right Click => Position => Move To Primary Position tool. Therefore, if the person of interest is not in the Father or Mother position, the only way to move them there is to use the chevrons beside the person’s box. If the person is in one of the Parents positions, click the chevron to the right of their box. If the person is in one of the child positions, click the chevron to the left of their box.
- The upper half of the left sidebar contains three tabs - Details tab, Parents tab, and Spouses tab. Click on the Spouses tab, All the highlighted person’s spouses will be listed. The top half of the left sidebar will usually be big enough to show all spouses. If not, you can use the mouse to drag the dividing line between top half and the bottom half of the left sidebar further down the screen to make enough room to list all the spouses.
- Click on the spouse to which you wish to switch. Family view will switch to reflect the newly chosen spouse and the newly chosen spouse will now be highlighted.
- If you wish to switch to another spouse of the original person, you first will need to highlight the original person again because it is now the spouse of the original person who is highlighted rather than the original person still being highlighted.
Oops, I answered a different question than the one you asked. You asked about parents and I answered about spouses. So let’s try again. You still begin with the person of interest highlighted, except that this time if you are going to do it in Family view you should have the person of interest highlighted and located in one of the child positions.
- Click on the Parents tab in the left sidebar.
- Click on the set of parents you wish to display in the main Family view.
All the other verbiage from my first message about how to use the chevrons to get the person into the correct location on the screen and how to change the size of the top half of the left sidebar still applies and I will not repeat it here.
After you change parents, the highlighted child will no longer be highlighted, Instead, it will be one of the parents of the child who will be highlighted. So if you want to switch back to the original set of parents, you will need to highlight the child again.
I am using RM7 so I don’t see what you are telling me.
Click on Parents in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Choose the set of parents to whom you wish to switch.
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Thank you, now I got it. Thanks for being so patient and helpful. I have RM9, but to me it is so different that for now I am using RM7 as my working version. Just wish I could find a way to update my Rootsmagic app database on my Android phone. Thanks again.