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.)

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

...All the who now?

I don't think there is a good way to put in "this guy's probably not actually my father even though my mom would rather die than admit it" or "this guy's probably my real father and that would actually be awesome". Footnotes, that's what it needs.

...All the who now?

Hey! You could be dotted line related to me! Possibly!

I don't think there is a good way to put in "this guy's probably not actually my father even though my mom would rather die than admit it" or "this guy's probably my real father and that would actually be awesome". Footnotes, that's what it needs.

Profile pages allow for notes. There are also ways to specify multiple fathers and make one or the other primary. I've had to do that, too.

FamilyTreeMaker allows you to list gender as "M", "F", or "?". It lets you show alternate parents for an individual, and a variety of relationships -- adopted, step, foster, unknown, and ISTR some others. Pairings between adults can be things other than married -- friends, partners, other, and again ISTR more. I can be more specific when I am back home in mid-Feb and can access the program. It also let's you enter multiple names for the same person.

I bought the new version of FTM when I upgraded to Win7 a year or so ago, didn't like it, and reverted back to FTM v9 (I think?).

I don't subscribe to Ancestry.com because I am to cheap. I post my file to Rootsweb.com so that mistakes can be spotted, and corrections and additions sent to me, and that has worked out pretty well. Rootsweb was bought up by Ancestry about ten years ago, so my file appears there too, but the updates are very slow (years, I think) to migrate over. Rootsweb is still available at no charge, I'm glad that Ancestry has honored that.

I still use PAF once in a while, just to stay familiar with it.