3 replies to this topic

[DonaA]

Is there a way to add parents' divorce to a child's timeline? When I use the timeline view (as opposed to pedigree or descendants) for my son, I see my marriage event (to my 2nd husband) but I don't see the divorce event from my first husband (my son's father). I have entered both as facts on my person screen. I have posted this question on the Facebook site as well. Using RootsMagic 7 on Windows 10 platform. Thanks.

[Jerry Bryan]

You can share the parents' divorce event for the child and it will show up on the child's timeline. However, doing so will also make the parents' divorce event print out on narrative reports for the child. That might or might not be something you would desire to do.

 

Jerry

[Jerry Bryan]

Your note got me to thinking about some other interesting possibilities. For the most part, I do not use RM's shared facts because they do not interchange well with third party software. My one exception is that I share marriage and divorce events with the parties to the marriage and divorce in order to cause the events to appear in the timeline order for each party in narrative reports. Even though my shared marriage and divorce events are lost on interchange with third party software, no actual genealogical data is lost. All that is lost is some report formatting.

 

So your note got me to thinking that not only might a parents' divorce be interesting to a child's timeline, but also other events of a parents life might be interesting to a child's timeline, such as a parent's death when the child is young. Sharing a parent's death fact with a child in this manner would cause the event to appear in in a narrative report for the child.

 

I'm particularly interested in this sort of thing because between the two of them, my grandfathers were married five times with no divorces. Both of them lost wives who died as young women, leaving my grandfathers to raise very small children on their own. These deaths were very significant events in the lives of the children, and listing the deaths in timeline order in narrative reports for the children could be a very useful thing to do. RM's shared events would do the trick.

 

Jerry

 

[DonaA]

Thanks Jerry.  Harold replied to my Facebook RootsMagic group posting with the same "fix".  I have found that parental divorces do impact children - no matter how old.  And I will follow the same "fix" to make sure that my parents death information shows up on my children's and grandchildren's timelines.  Again -- impactful events for all.