Comments on: Family Tree Maker: Unmarried or Childless Relatives

By: Tana L. Pedersen

Tana L. Pedersen — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:19:18 +0000

First, thanks to all of you for your comments. It’s always good to see scenarios I haven’t faced and also start a discussion that hopefully helps all of us. I like the idea of saying “as of” and entering a date. As we all know, our “facts” are often proven wrong.

# 3 George
Entering the Never Married fact in the Date field works in the 2010 version of the software. What version are you using?

#4 Tom
I apologize for not answering your email sooner. As the author of the Official Guide, I try to answer email when I can. I will definitely look for your email immediately. And in the future, if you need quick responses, you can email your questions to support@ancestry.com or call 1-800-262-3787. Thank you for your comments.

#12
Even if the couple were never married, they are still the parents of the child and should be entered as such. However, for the couple’s relationship status (entered on the Person tab of the People workspace) you’ll want to choose “partner,” “private,” or “unknown” for the couple’s relationship type.

By: Carol

Carol — Sun, 23 May 2010 18:26:02 +0000

Thanks for the tip,I too have wondered about how to do this. As to some of the comments. Death certificates have the marrital status. Ture as to the children, there may be other children but If you have personnel knoweledge of the marriage of a couple ie. both of my direct aunts and uncles did not have children, a great aunt did not have children. I think you can list this as a fact if it is personnel knowedge.especially if you can back it up with the census or other proof. Sometimes a couple will divorce and contact lost and a new marriage will occur or a marriage late in life where this marriage has no children, but with other spouses they do. Ie. my in-laws. My father in-law remarried after he lost his wife to a widow. They each had grown children by first marriages but as they were in their 60′s they obviously didn’t have a child during their marriage.

By: Terry

Terry — Sun, 23 May 2010 17:49:17 +0000

I am in the middle of doing tree maintenance in FTM, and had never really used the “Plan” tab effectively. Good thing I checked today. The tips about both the Never Married feature, and a potential way to document No Known Descendants was awesome. Also the other tips about checking the Help file with other date options was great. Thanks so much!

By: Annette

Annette — Thu, 20 May 2010 15:53:46 +0000

I do not have FTM, but I have done something similiar to my on-line ancestry.com family tree: under ‘add a family member’ I enter Never Married in the space where the first name of a spouse would go, and the system takes it. I have only done this a few times: in one case, I know a particular great aunt never married, in another case research was exhaustive and never produced a spouse, not in census records, and not in any other public records. BUT, in a third case, purchase of the CW pension file of a half great-uncle showed that he and his wife had two boys who died as toddlers. There was a death record for one, but not the other. Since the names of the parents were not on the death record, and I did not know of the child’s existance, let alone his name, I might never have found the record if I had not purchased the pension file.

By: jjbug1

jjbug1 — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:20:28 +0000

Appreciate the 2 suggestions: m. NEVER MARRIED and custom fact: No descendants. I also add the symbol “∆” before the birth location which means to me “no descendants”.

By: Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson — Wed, 19 May 2010 19:48:59 +0000

so many variable to stating no children especially if its a man. On a particular line where a person I know married and never had children in his marriage yet has a child by another woman that his family does not know about. Or my father who married in New Mexico and had 10 children all on the census. Left for Mexico in 1922 and there had two other wives and six more children that his first family had no idea what our dad was up to. sixteen children that we know of. Possible more still may show up. Is it easier to trace the children women have. Probably a bit easier, yet some have had children they release for adoption or that died at birth. Never know. For a man, never know. To many instances where a life long marriage produced no children but there were children that the man fathered elsewhere. That his wife did not know about. Instance of a man who fathered children with 3 sister and only married one of them. The other children raised and adopted by the husbands the other two sisters married. ?? This was later proved by DNA. Trying to trace family descendants you can only put what you know. “no known children”. Leaves it open for a lot descendant to show up. I showed up and rattled the surviving children of my dad’s first marriage. Especially since dad was 67 when I was born.

By: familyhistorycrw

familyhistorycrw — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:18:34 +0000

What about if there were children born to the union but the parents were never married??

By: B.G. Wiehle

B.G. Wiehle — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:11:58 +0000

My custom marriage fact is labeled ‘Offspring’, and is populated with the number of children, sometimes grandchildren and stepchildren, usually as of a particular date. Often the information source is an obituary. This gives me a way of tracking whether I am missing any descendants and I can explain discrepancies due to 2nd marriages or adoptions.

By: Cathy Kroohs

Cathy Kroohs — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:53:42 +0000

I have a relative who is unmarried with a child. We know the child’s father’s name, but I haven’t found a good way to enter this information. I either have child of “A” and “B” where “A” and “B” are married, or “A” and unknown father, neither of which is correct. This is not that unusual a circumstance; does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can enter this?

By: George

George — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:50:36 +0000

Thanks guys for the help.