Genealogy research with Gramps

Posted Jul 17, 2014 20:24 UTC (Thu) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
In reply to: Genealogy research with Gramps by TomH
Parent article: Genealogy research with Gramps

It is true that a person has two biological parents of opposite gender, who may or may not be known. They can have one or more legal parents of any gender. It seems a little restrictive to have only two fields.

Genealogy is the study of family history and so while biological parents are important, legal parentage is also important and shouldn't be ignored.

Genealogy research with Gramps

Posted Jul 19, 2014 0:01 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (4 responses)

while biological parents are important, legal parentage is also important and shouldn't be ignored

I would think social parentage is even more interesting that legal parentage. The fact that a person raised another person matters more to many people than the various things that legal parenthood signifies.

And there's no reason that relationship should be limited to one or two people.

They can have one or more legal parents of any gender

Is there any place where a person can have more than two legal parents?

Genealogy research with Gramps

Posted Jul 19, 2014 0:32 UTC (Sat) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (2 responses)

Is there any place where a person can have more than two legal parents?

California has recently made it possible for someone to have more than two legal parents.

Genealogy research with Gramps

Posted Jul 19, 2014 1:07 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

not to mention that someone may have more legal parents over time, and as you are researching, it may not always be clear what the overlap for individuals is.

Genealogy research with Gramps

Posted Aug 18, 2014 21:41 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Add to that, in the UK at least, legal adoption is very much a 20th-century practice. (And I think there is no limit to the number of adoptive parents a child can have. Plus, kids can be left in a will...)

I don't know whether legal adoption even existed before that, but it was very much the norm, if the wife died, any kids were given away (to family members if they were around, or to various charities if they weren't).

And quite often, if family circumstances changed, children that had been given away were taken back.

I suspect I'm quite lucky to know my family because, even then (back in the thirties) that practice was quite common, and my grandmother died when my father was two years old. Granddad remarried within the year, though, iirc, so that may have had something to do with it ...

Cheers,
Wol

Genealogy research with Gramps

Posted Jul 19, 2014 3:04 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Lots of countries practice polygamy. Then there are adoptions - it's possible for someone to be orphaned and then adopted (possibly several times).

Genealogy research with Gramps

Posted Aug 3, 2014 15:26 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

A child and parents can be members of multiple "families" in Gramps, which covers for some of those use cases (although sometimes it would clearly be & look like a workaround/kludge...).