The issue of the “Unknown spouse” comes up all the time in questions about RM. It’s usually in the context of one parent being known when the other is not. The way the term appears on the screen, it looks almost like there is a person there named “Unknown spouse” when in fact the unknown parent’s slot is just empty. I wish there were a better way to display this situation on the screen, but I confess I’m hard pressed to come up with a better alternative.
Here is an actual example that I was just looking at.
Charles Wesley Black was the son of John Wesley Black who is not in the image. Charles Wesley Black was the nephew of John Wesley Black’s brother George Emory Black who appears in the image as if he is the father rather than the uncle. But John Wesley Black was killed in action in France in WWI at which point Charles was adopted by George Emory Black. It was an actual court approved adoption, not just a “raised by” situation of convenience as sometimes happened.
So I show George Emory Black as the adoptive father of Charles without an adoptive mother. Indeed, Jesse Campbell Dew was divorced from George Emory Black and took no part in raising Charles. So the empty mother’s slot for Charles is totally appropriate. It’s not like there was an adoptive mother who is unknown and I just haven’t found her yet. She didn’t exist. George did move in with his unmarried sister who I suppose served in the role of stepmother. But to show a brother and sister as spouses seems really yucky.
I have wondered sometimes if it would be helpful if RM would simply leave the space blank rather than saying “Unknown spouse”, but I’m not sure I like that either. It’s frustrating.
I think it might be less confusing to say Unknown Mother or Unknown Father (based on sex) – that would be accurate. I know what unknown spouse means in RM speak but the average user is likely confused as well as new user. They some users might make more of a mess trying to clean things up. The new view (life summary) does help put things into context except for missing life span (or DOB/ DOD). In the background those unknown have RIN of Zero (so adding sex might be a little more complicated from a programing POV).
so what you did makes sense as far the way RM works, but has undesired results in other views. (She didn’t exist or yet anyway). on a side note I am guess Father only adoption were less common in that time period. Also more complicated in a ways because of the other relationships. I am sure this while not everyday occurrence – scenarios similar to this might be more common that one would think. To be fair many software has problems with these things.
Kevin
How about “No spouse entered”?
I’m not sure what text is best, or if maybe just blanks is best.
The distinction I was trying to make is that in the case of biological parents, there have to have been two parents whether both names are known or not. But in the case of non-biological parents such as adoptive parents or foster parents or step parents or “raised by” parents, there truly can be only one parent. There may not be a missing parent that you just can’t find. There truly can be a single mom or a single dad. But the data model seems to insist on having a slot for that other parent who is “unknown”. The data model doesn’t like the idea of the single mom or the single dad.
And another option is that there are two non-biological parents, but that the non-biological parents are a brother and sister who you surely don’t want to show as “spouses”.
Ultimately, I think what is needed is a paradigm shift where a child has a separate child-parent relationship with each biological parent and also a separate child-parent with any non-biological parent. As things stand, Sarah Doe is the child of John_Doe_and_Jane_Smith. Instead, Sarah Doe needs to be the child of John Doe and Sarah Doe needs to be the child of Jane Smith. But that would be a huge change and it’s not going to happen. So that leaves us with how software such as RM deals with this child of John_Doe_and_Jane_Smith data model when there truly is only one parent - not two parents of whom one is unknown.
