You'd think a LDS database would have allowed for multiple spouses long before most dealt with the issue...

What every genealogy program worth its salt needs is an "It's complicated" relationship.

What every genealogy program worth its salt needs is an "It's complicated" relationship.

That's why they have dotted lines on the family tree.

or a fosterage relationship.

Curse you Buffistas: I just spent 2 hours on ancestry.com, looking for my mother's family. I found her mother, and her mother's aunt, but I can't find my gmother's parents, and I can't figure out her mother's maiden name, because I don't know if the aunt is on her mother's side or father's.

Basically, when my grandmother was a child, her parents both died and she was sent to live with her aunt, who already had four older sons, and my grandmother was the live-in help until she married and moved out. At which she became the live-in help for my grandfather.

I was hoping the data on the aunt would lead me to her parents, but it doesn't. Feh.

And let me tell you: there are way too many Currans/Currens in NY and PA in the late 1800s.

It is pretty easy to add different parents for siblings. I have done it often.

It's... possible I didn't have the attention span to figure it out.

Once I created the family tree, I couldn't figure out how to get away from it and look for someone who wasn't (officially) part of it. The program seemed to be shoving me back to the tree. Again, maybe I didn't stick with it long enough.

When my great-grandmother died, leaving four children, her spinster sister moved in and took care of the children and her brother-in-law for the rest of her life. What the relationship was between her and him, I don't know. I hope she was happy.

It's easy to trace my dad's family on the Census site because they have uncommon-ish names and live in a little tiny town. My mom's family though...do you know how many William Wilsons there have been in Chicago??

That's why they have dotted lines on the family tree

In my family, the dotted lines mean "unofficial". That does not have to be complicated.

Dammit, I grabbed some tangerine juice, and while it's absolutely delicious, I think I've burnt my lips, and I have to do drink something that doesn't make me break out all along the alimentary canal. Why does tasty food have to dislike me? I figured as long as I wasn't gluten intolerant, I'd be okay. Lie! Lie! Lies and citric acid!

Yeah, I still haven't figured a good way to put in "potentially platonic life partners in modern version of Boston Marriage."

Partially because, well, THAT would require me to, oh, remember my Aunt's full legal name. Which isn't the one she goes by.

ALTHOUGH...

Shit. If she took a BOAT to England when she went to study nursing there, I bet I could find it without having to ask my mother how the hell Cindie spells it!

(Then I'll just have to sort through all the Higgins out there.)

I think it was a boat. She was telling me last time I saw her about the woman who had her passport hidden to try to keep her from leaving. Hmm....

(THIS WOULD BE EASIER, ELDERLY RELATIVES, IF YOU WERE ALL ON FUCKING EMAIL.)