I have been using FTM for many years but has been a while since there was an update despite promising one last year. So, I decided to try out RootsMagic and have been quite satisfied so far. However, there is one thing that is better in FTM and that is the Relationship Calculator. RootsMagic only seems to match blood relations although things are a little better in the Kinship report but still doesn’t come up with everything. My wife is Chinese and as you probably know, Chinese names can be confusing, so I have found that FTM does a fair job of helping me identify the various relationships. RootsMagic does not even identify my stepson. I appreciate that I could enter these relationships manually but would be nice to have this done automatically and although not every user needs this degree of information, I am sure that there are a lot that would.
I agree. My son’s stepson is a valued member of our family but RM does not automatically recognise the closeness of such a relationship. He may not be my son’s blood relative but he’s just as important to our family story. His status should be recognised by Set Relationships and Relationship calculator. He should appear properly in reports too. For example, on my son’s Kinship report his stepson doesn’t appear; on his own Kinship report my son is listed as " spouse of mother". Am I doing something wrong, or is this a glitch which needs RM’s attention?
I agree. I would also like to see:
Father/mother of my stepmother/stepfather
Sister/brother of my stepmother/stepfather
I think there should be a toggle to display or turn off – sometimes I might want to see them other times no. More importantly other used may or may not want to see them.
I believe it is operating as “designed” but not necessarily as desired.
That said – a change would require a program change enhancement vs “bug fix”. Just because many users expect something to work differently does not make something a bug.
Hi all
Can’t suggest much on RM recognizing relationships for Chinese lineage BUT @steve.turner and @Gpetranek if you want to you could add your son’s stepson as a child of your son— for example you can mark that your son John is the step father of Mark then:
the stepson Mark will be listed as the son of John in the relationship chart and in narrative reports-- you would be listed as the grandfather and all your kids would be listed as aunts and uncles of Mark etc–
As for the relationship shown on the page and in the kinship list, stepfather John will be shown as spouse of the mother
Yep, done that, It’s just that little notation in the upper left which would be nice if it showed stepchildren, etc
Sure sounds like a rabbit-hole to try and define a scope of representations and a programmatic scheme to implement (let alone “automatic”).
Real-life families are/can be complex and folks understandably want to account for all their particular situations. But that often includes circumstances such as… an unknown parent leading to unknown relationships, non-blood or non-marital spouses, intra/extra familial adoptions or elective non-adoptions, raised by grandparents, unacknowledged or disclaimed parent(s), … and then those relationships might encompass step siblings, half-siblings, step half-siblings, adoptive siblings, foster siblings and maybe even guardians and neighbors.
Present a template that encapsulates all the possibilities and offer them for consideration. Good Luck.