7 replies to this topic

[Cedric]

I have just upgraded to RM4.
Firstly, am I correct that the relation column in family view will differentiate between birth & adopted children?

Many of the adopted children in my database were entered in FO 4 to 8, their adoption status being indicated in a person note - in a few more recent cases (using RM3) I have birth & adoptive parents.

First problem of course is to find all the adopted children in 9,000 persons.

But having done that, do I have to unlink them from parents, then re-link to parents with an adopted property, or is there a quicker way of changing this field?

[Alfred]

First, you need a list of the adopted people that you need to edit.

Adoption -- exists -- is true == Does not work,
It is probably pest to do a List, Fact List, adoption (people with this fact) for a partial list.

Then do a report, individual list of selected people, Mark people, select by data fields:
Any fact -- note -- Contains -- adopted

Now you should have two lists, there are probably some who appear in both lists. save them both as text files and combine them into NotePad or WordPad or something for reference while editing. (I would copy and paste them into the same file for convenience.

I see no reason to unlink anyone. they should still be linked to both natural and adoptive parents if they were before.

( It might be easiest to find the people to edit by their record numbers, )
Open each person for editing, click on the adoptive parents at the top of the edit person window and set their relationships to their father and mother.

[Cedric]

Thanks Alfred, but I guess I didn't adequately explain the situation. In many cases I only have adoptive parents recorded in the database - in a few cases I have both sets of parents, or one or 2 birth parents, plus an adoptive one that followed a death & remarriage or a divorce & remarriage. But in older versions of RM & FO all parents have imported as birth parents.

So my question is whether I have to unlink them as birth parents before attaching as adoptive, or whether there is a quicker way of just changing birth parent to adoptive?

[Laura]

After you find the adopted chiildren using Alfred's helpful advice for that part of your original question, leave the parents linked.

There is no distinction made for birth, adoptive, etc. parents when parents are linked.

Open the Edit person screen for the child.

Highlight the Parents.

In the top right pane, pick the relationship to the father and mother separately from the drop down menus. Birth, Adopted, Step, Foster, etc.

This choice will show on the Family view screen.

If you want, you could also add the Adoption fact to that child, choosing the adoptive parents from the drop down menu in that fact.

Laura

[bienia]

One additional step I like to perform if there are other children in the family with the adopted child is to change the birth order of the adopted child so he/she is last.

Note that I use narrative reports sent to a word processor. In the word processor, I can add a new "child list introduction sentence" by inserting a sentence that explains the relationship of the parents to the child, something like:

After marriage to the child's mother, John Doe adopted the following child:

I am hoping that Bruce will eventually separate biological and adopted children in the reports and allow us to control/modify the Child List introduction sentence, so we don't have to modify this post-generation every time.

[franjane]

I am hoping that Bruce will eventually separate biological and adopted children in the reports and allow us to control/modify the Child List introduction sentence, so we don't have to modify this post-generation every time.

Please add step children to the list. Often, particularly when children are older, they are never adopted my the new spouse. However, the step parent can be more important in the lives of the child and the grandchildren that the natural parents.

[Romer]

In the Edit Person screen, the options are:

Birth
Adopted
Step
Foster
Related
Guardian
Sealed
Unknown

[Laura]

Note that I use narrative reports sent to a word processor. In the word processor, I can add a new "child list introduction sentence" by inserting a sentence that explains the relationship of the parents to the child, something like:

After marriage to the child's mother, John Doe adopted the following child:

I don't like having to remember to add extra to a rtf file after I generate it. And I can't add anything to a pdf file.

I use a user defined fact, Parent history, which will always be printed with the child however many sets of parents they are linked to. In blended families, it is also added to a birth child. The Sentence structure is [Person] [Desc].

The description field and note to explain the relationship of parents to child, the birth parents, step parent and birth parent, foster parents, adoptive parent{s}, grand parents who raised them, etc. This fact is sorted right after the Birth fact.

I sort by birth order since the ages will effect the dynamics of the family whatever the children's actual blood relationship so I wouldn't want RM4 to automatically resort the children into another order even if it is just in a narrative report.

Laura