Coding unusual family relationships within the GEDCOM standard

[Jeff Armstrong]

Let me introduce myself as I join this group. 

Even though I am the main contact in Australia for the Clan Armstrong Association I've never been deeply involved in family history but for reasons now lost in the mists to time I started a database of my family, slowly expanding it to include my mother's large family and my wife's even larger family back as far as nine generations on one line. I soon outgrew the simple spreadsheet I was using and discovered GEDitCOM in the late 1990's. I have been using it ever since.

I am now regarded as one of the family archivists with over 5,000 individuals recorded in the most basic fashion - name, dates, significant events but no real detail about individuals. There is another Clan wide database with over 12,000 records. but this almost entirely uncurated.
I realise that I am not using the full power of GEDitCOM but the information I have recorded gives those who want to delve deeper into their particular branch of the family a good starting point. As most of them are on Windows systems they could not use GEDitCOM anyway.

Recent social changes have generated some complex relationships that I can't seem to code properly with GEDitCOM.

Can anyone help me?

Situation one
Male marries and divorces after ten years without issue.
He takes a second wife in a defacto relationship. She has two children already by two different men prior to them ever meeting. Both of those relationships were abusive and she has cut off all contact with her children's fathers. The younger child is welcomed into the home and is a defacto daughter. The elder child is already adult when the relationship starts and is more a friend to his mother's new partner than anything. There is no way he could be called a stepson.
I've coded the mother as a second wife butt he question is how to code the woman's children. The son is noted as one of her children but 'outside' the family tree. The daughter is, effectively, a stepdaughter but I do not know how the GEDCOM standard handles this situation.

Situation two
Female marries and has three sons by her spouse. Meanwhile he has a daughter by another woman in what becomes a polyamorous household. All four children are growing up together as full siblings in a household with one father and two mothers. The two youngest are less than six months apart in age.
I've coded this family as two marriages, even though the girl child's mother is not formally married to her daughter's father.
Is there a better way to manage this?

Situation three
 I've needed to code a couple of same sex pairings now. What they do in bed in none of my business and I don't want to know but they ARE family units.

How to manage same sex marriage? GEDitCOM (and presumably GEDCOM) only allows for opposite sex spouses and I cannot see how to force it to allow same sex pairings whether these be formal marriages or defacto partnerships.

[Stephane LELAURE]

Hello Jeff and welcome to this group.

Please excuse my English. I'm not a native English speaker so feel free to ask if there's something you don't understand from my explanations.

Situation 1:

If I understood you well, the relationship can be shown as in the diagram attached, right?

In my opinion, there are as many family units as there are different husband/wife/child relations. Both children were born to a different couple each time, so they each belong to their own family unit, sharing the same mother.

If the diagram represents what you meant correctly, both children are the male's stepchildren, biologically and linguistically speaking.

Now, in the GEDCOM 551 standard, a child may be attached to many family records if necessary, for instance one being the biological parents, the other being the family by adoption (see "The GEDCOM Standard Release 5.5.1", PDF p. 25-26).

So what you could do is attach the daughter as a child to the couple made by the wife and the male, besides the biological couple.

Then, in the child's record, next to her 'parents', choose 'foster' in the Birth menu. If the male officially adopts his stepdaughter later on, you could change the Birth to 'adopted'.

Maybe other users would do otherwise and recommend writing a note either in the family record or in the daughter's record. Or creating an ASSO relationship.

I don't know how those date would be interpreted if the GEDCOM file was to be transferred into another software. But as creating many family records for a child is in the standard, it should be recognized by them.

Situation 2:

Biologically speaking, there are 2 family units, as you said.

You could add a note explaining the situation to one or both family units, or you could add the same address to both family units, which would make things clear enough, I think.

Situation 3:

GEDitCOM II is based on the GEDCOM 5.5.1 standard which doesn't recognize same-sex relationships.

I think this is one of the biggest shortcomings of GEDitCOM II. I would very much like to see it embrace other versions of GEDCOM, such as v. 5.5.5 (which may not be considered as standard by some, because it was not provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints / FamilySearch), or v. 7 which is getting adopted by more and more software now. All the more as GEDitCOM II uses a lot of custom tags and brings sometimes unwanted modifications to the structure of a valid imported GEDCOM file (multimedia objects handling, embedded notes and sources handling, etc).

If you wish to know more about GEDCOM and its use in GEDitCOM II, you could read its help pages about the GEDCOM 5.5.1 standard (available from paragraph 2).

Other pages worth reading are the GEDCOM page about LGBTQ Genealogy & Software written by a genealogist (June 2021), and the page about same-sex marriage in GEDCOM by Tamura Jones (Jan. 2016) who initiated GEDCOM 5.5.5. to offset the drawbacks of the 5.5.1 standard.

Anyway, in your case I would probably try to manually change the GEDCOM data, by first creating a family record with one of the spouses, then by editing the GEDCOM with copying-pasting the second spouse's ID number onto the WIFE tag. If you don't understand what I mean, please read Jones's somewhat lengthy but clear article mentioned above. It explains what to do in a much better way than I will ever do. But be aware that GEDitCOM might warn you there's a mistake in your file -- I haven't tried.

Another, more radical, solution is to change software! You could use Ancestris, which is a free, actively-developped and open-source multi-platform software. It is fully compliant with standard 5.5.1 and also allows same-sex unions. It is developped in Java, which may be a hindrance to some people, though.

See: https://www.ancestris.org/index.html

Please let us know about your choices.

--
Stéphane LELAURE

envoyé : 28 décembre 2024 à 12:28
de : 'Jeff Armstrong' via GEDitCOM II Discussions <geditcom-ii...@googlegroups.com>
à : GEDitCOM II Discussions <geditcom-ii...@googlegroups.com>
objet : Coding unusual family relationships within the GEDCOM standard

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[John Nairn]

If you have been using GEDitCOM since late 1990’s, you must have started with the original GEDitCOM. Did you switch to GEDitCOM II when it came out at the end of 2008? With all the Apple MacOS changes since then, the old GEDitCOM no longer runs on new Macs. Even the current GEDitCOM II can only run on MacOS High Sierra (10.13) or newer (some legacy posting work back to 10.4, but are way out of date).

All situations below can be handled by GEDitCOM II by creating multiple family records. When children are attached to any family, you can choose a “Pedigree” in the child’s record. Typically, you do not attach step children because those are implied by biological linkages through multiple family records. More complicated relationships can be handled other ways such as by attaching note records to explain therm. Although family records in GEDCOM link one “husband” and one “wife,”, GEDitCOM II has methods to handle same-sex couples in family records (I don’t think old GEDitCOM had that).

Overall, the GEDCOM standard is arranged to documenting biological linkages. Families can be more complex, but that bends the “genealogy" model. You can choose what ever options works best in your situation. More details depend on if you are using GEDitCOM II. I no longer have a Mac that can even run the old GEDitCOM from the 1990s.

[John Nairn, Developer]

Situation 3

Some details on same-sex couples in GEDitCOM II, which has supported them for a long time. The process, however, needed a work-around to the GEDCOM 5.5.1 standard that does not formally support them. To create same-sex couples in GEDitCOM II, you can do the following:

1. If the family has two new individuals, use New Record->Family menu command. You can enter two names for spouses and either one can be any either sex (or unknown sex).

2. To attach individuals you already created in a new family record, create a record with one spouse (male or female). Then, instead of using the "Attach Wife" or "Attach Husband" buttons, use the Attach->Male Partner... or Attach->Female Partner... menu commands (these will appear whenever the family record in view has only one spouse).

3. You can enter marriage date or Attach->Not Married Status if not married (these are also options for male-family family groups).

4. You can attach children by all the usual methods. If children are adopted, that can be indicated in the child's record by their link to the family, but it is better to also attach a "Adoption" even to the child to give more details. In the adoption event detail, you can link that event to any family record and then indicate whether the child was adopted by "husband", "wife", or "both". For same-sex couples, "husband" and "wife" refer to order listed in the family record. For example child born to one mother in same-sex family, might be adopted by the other spouse only.

[Jeff Armstrong]

Bonjour Stéphane,

Thank you for your welcome and a huge Thank You (or perhaps I should say Merci beaucoup) for your carefully thought out reply. Your English is far better than my French although I managed when I visited France before Covid.

Your diagram describes the first situation exactly. I was fairly sure there would be an answer to this situation. I have now been able list the girl as her stepfather's foster child. I was unaware of the tag for fostering. I don't think he will ever formally adopt her. The mother's son will never be anything but a friend of the family to his sister's stepfather so there is no problem there in a genealogical  sense.

You have confirmed that I have resolved the second case as best as I can. I will put a note in each family record describing the polyamorous relationship. Given the origin of the GEDCOM standard I am little surprised there is not a tag for it.

Equally, and for the same reasons, I am not too surprised that there is no LDS ratified means of dealing with same sex relationships.

Given the clues you gave me I have been able to force GEDitCOM to 'accept'  a same sex marriage by going into the Source screen

 of a blank new marriage record and entering the ID numbers for the two husbands Male New 1 and Male New 2 like this

0 @F754@ FAM
1 HUSB @I2424@
1 MARR
2 DATE 30 DEC 2024
1 HUSB @I2423@
1 REFN 30 DEC 2024 11:59:08
2 TYPE Creation Date
1 _GCID 61658DBE-6952-4245-9DF1-AA4287112683
1 CHAN
2 DATE 30 DEC 2024
3 TIME 12:00:29

The display still doesn't show the husband and leaves the Wife unassigned but the husband is recorded in the show All mode as in this screen shot. It doesn't work properly because the FAM record, which bans same sex relationships, overrides the FAM record but, at least, it is shown.

[Jeff Armstrong]

Thank you for replying yourself, John. We have corresponded directly in the past when I had questions but those exchanges will be lost in the mists of time. I only joined this forum a few days ago.

Indeed I did start with the original GEDitCOM but switched to GEDitCOM II when it came out - I will take your word for the 2008 date, I don't remember. I am running Version 3.2(6) of GEDitCOM  on a Ventura Mac v13.7.2 so I think I am pretty well up to date. My registration is under another email address that I will DM you if you wish to check my bona fides.

I think your programme is wonderful and have been recommending it to anyone who asks me that has a Mac. No genealogist myself I still get asked quite often by people wanting to develop their own Family History stories.
The others have given a couple of workarounds but the one you have provided does exactly what I wanted.

Thank you again for your personal input.

It is the morning of New Year's Eve here so I take opportunity to wish you and everyone else a Happy 2025.