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Judy M.

Commitment / Child

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The main reason I switched genealogy programs is because we have a daughter with a same-sex partner and a child. The child is the biological daughter of our daughter's partner. All the tags are set up appropriately (dau-bio and dau-ado), but apparently because both parents are female and/or there's an adoption involved, our granddaughter shows up as the daughter of our daughter-in-law but not of our daughter. :( While I understand to some extent why this is happening, I'm wondering if there's a way around it so that both women show up as parents. I don't even mind changing the dau-ado if necessary and using a memo (or something!).

 

What's really sad is that the former program, Roots Magic, actually does show both parents in the charts; however, that's because one of the women shows up as a male. :( RM has made it clear that they will not recognize same-sex unions, period. I'm pleased that TMG does at least that.

 

Just so you know, I'm not looking for a lecture on the definition of genealogy as it relates to blood lines -- just want to know if there's a work around to handle this and will accomplish my goal.

 

Thanks!

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Judy,

 

TMG will recognize same-sex couples, but will not allow two same-sex parents to be made primary. The failure of both parent/child relationship tags to be primary is why your granddaughter isn't shown with both parents.

 

I'm afraid the solution is the same one you used before - show one of the parents as male. This may cause some issues in reports, but I think they can mostly be solved. In narratives, you can overide the Sentences of any tags that refer to the "male" parent with male pronouns, etc., so they will read correctly. Off hand, I don't think of other report issues, but there may be some I've missed.

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Judy,

 

TMG will recognize same-sex couples, but will not allow two same-sex parents to be made primary. The failure of both parent/child relationship tags to be primary is why your granddaughter isn't shown with both parents.

 

I'm afraid the solution is the same one you used before - show one of the parents as male. This may cause some issues in reports, but I think they can mostly be solved. In narratives, you can overide the Sentences of any tags that refer to the "male" parent with male pronouns, etc., so they will read correctly. Off hand, I don't think of other report issues, but there may be some I've missed.

Hi, Terry!

 

I wonder if this is something that could ever be changed in a future TMG version? There are definitely genealogists who would object -- but they don't have to use what they don't want to use!

 

 

Just for kicks, I changed our daughter's sex to M and add dau-bio for our granddaughter. I've obviously forgotten to change something else, because I'm still not getting two parents to our grandchild. :(

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I wonder if this is something that could ever be changed in a future TMG version? There are definitely genealogists who would object -- but they don't have to use what they don't want to use!

I can't speak for WG, but I do know this is an issue of some concern for a number of users. But the problem, it seems to me, is more involved than simply changing a rule. It's something like this:

 

- There is only one relationship tag of each type - that is, there is only one "-bio" tag. It gets labeled as Mother, Father, or Parent, depending on setting of the sex flag of the parent. It gets labeled Son, Daughter, or Child depending on the sex flag of the child.

 

- When you make it primary, the tag appears in either the Father or Mother spot in the Person View depending on the sex flag of the parent.

 

- Some reports, like the pedigree, are designed to always put the male parent in the upper side of the "tree."

 

All these issues (and perhaps more I've not thought about) would have to be somehow worked out to allow two same-sex parents. That's not to say it can't be done, but only to say it's not simple. :)

 

Just for kicks, I changed our daughter's sex to M and add dau-bio for our granddaughter. I've obviously forgotten to change something else, because I'm still not getting two parents to our grandchild. :(

Look at the person view of the granddaughter - I expect you will find the Mother tag at the top, meaning it's marked primary. But the Father tag will be below, in the tag box, because it's not primary. As I said before - having the relationship tags marked primary is the key.

 

Select the father tag and press the " * " key to make it primary. Then run the reports and I think you will see that it works as you want.

 

Will it work if the person's sex is set to Unknown? That might be more preferable than saying Male for a female.

If you set a parent's sex to unknown you cannot make the tag primary, for the reasons I outline above. And if you can't make them primary, you can't get the reports that Judy wants.

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I've put everything back the way it was -- two females, etc. I can't deal with this right now and decided I'd better keep everything accurate. So our "family" ends with our daughter -- her "adopted daughter," of course doesn't show up. Our granddaughter apppears as the daughter of our daughter's partner and "Unknown person" on a descendent chart beginning with the partner. Yes, I'm frustrated. Yes, I hope that someday I can enter our family as I would like.

 

(Software developer, are you listening? :unsure: )

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Hi, Terry!

 

Just for kicks, I changed our daughter's sex to M and add dau-bio for our granddaughter. I've obviously forgotten to change something else, because I'm still not getting two parents to our grandchild. :(

 

Leave your dataset with the wrong sex person.

 

Output reports to your word processor. Output charts to VCF. You may now hand-edit that one person with the wrong sex anyway that you want before printing.

 

Good luck,

Mike Talbot

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Output reports to your word processor. Output charts to VCF. You may now hand-edit that one person with the wrong sex anyway that you want before printing.

Mike, what would have to be hand edited?

 

I'd think you could fix all the narratives by use of local sentences - there generally aren't that many gender-specific phrases in a narrative.

 

The Family Group Sheet would be an issue only if the child is the subject, and I gather this is a young child so that seems not likely.

 

Pedigrees and descendant charts don't indicate sex, nor do box charts.

 

The Individual Detail does, but that's not generally a report one would share with others.

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Leave your dataset with the wrong sex person.

 

Output reports to your word processor. Output charts to VCF. You may now hand-edit that one person with the wrong sex anyway that you want before printing.

 

Good luck,

Mike Talbot

Let me get this straight: Leave our daughter as a male? But then what? How will she show as a parent, etc.?????

 

I think I'm overwhelmed. I probably should have started with the easy relationships. :unsure: However, I wanted to be sure TMG would work in this particular situation.

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Let me get this straight: Leave our daughter as a male? But then what? How will she show as a parent, etc.????

See posts # 3 & 5 above for how to make that happen.

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The main reason I switched genealogy programs is because we have a daughter with a same-sex partner and a child. The child is the biological daughter of our daughter's partner. All the tags are set up appropriately (dau-bio and dau-ado), but apparently because both parents are female and/or there's an adoption involved, our granddaughter shows up as the daughter of our daughter-in-law but not of our daughter. :( While I understand to some extent why this is happening, I'm wondering if there's a way around it so that both women show up as parents. I don't even mind changing the dau-ado if necessary and using a memo (or something!).

 

What's really sad is that the former program, Roots Magic, actually does show both parents in the charts; however, that's because one of the women shows up as a male. :( RM has made it clear that they will not recognize same-sex unions, period. I'm pleased that TMG does at least that.

 

Just so you know, I'm not looking for a lecture on the definition of genealogy as it relates to blood lines -- just want to know if there's a work around to handle this and will accomplish my goal.

 

Thanks!

 

 

The only way to accomplish what you want is for genealogy programs to divorce the meanings of bio-father and/or bio-mother and the word parent.

 

Parent should NOT mean immediate genealogical ancestor of either sex. The term parent should be sexless and no gender be required of that "role".

 

This means, for all practical purposes, changing the english language... anyone up to giving ity a try?

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Fortunately this situation isn't in my own database, but you might be aware:

 

I had a friend in college, and I even photographed his wedding. About 20 years later, he had some kind of existential crisis and decided to become a woman. He even went to Canada, had sexual reassignment surgery, and she returned to the U.S. She and her wife or ex-wife lived apart but nearby for a couple of years. With the economy, jobs for both went away. They moved to the midwest and bought a house where they are now living. We have received separate Christmas cards since the change and just got separate Christmas cards from both her (previously him) and her (previously his) wife or ex-wife this month from the same address. I haven't heard anything about her becoming him to make her, previously him, happy.

 

What do you do with M->F or F->M, married gays or lesbians, group marriages, Fundamentalist Mormon polygamous marriages to sister wives, hermaphrodites (sexless persons with neither or both organs), hippie communes, Siamese twins, or whatever. M and F may be quite limiting. Another answer for Sex could be "yes", or perhaps the flag should be allowed to have other values, or TMG could come up with some.

Edited by retsof

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Mike, what would have to be hand edited?

 

I'd think you could fix all the narratives by use of local sentences - there generally aren't that many gender-specific phrases in a narrative.

 

The Family Group Sheet would be an issue only if the child is the subject, and I gather this is a young child so that seems not likely.

 

Pedigrees and descendant charts don't indicate sex, nor do box charts.

 

The Individual Detail does, but that's not generally a report one would share with others.

 

The lady is unhappy. Therefore, hand editing that one person's data on any output to anything she desires can possibly achieve happiness for her. No need to change the way genealogy works.

 

Maybe,

Mike

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The lady is unhappy. Therefore, hand editing that one person's data on any output to anything she desires can possibly achieve happiness for her. No need to change the way genealogy works.

Yes, I understand Judy is having difficulty getting what she needs - I've been in contact with her to work around the issues.

 

My point is that few of TMG's reports need hand work to deal with the workaround that's been suggested - in fact none that one would want to share with others so far as I can tell. A couple of tag sentences may need tweaking, but if that's done it's a permanent fix - no tweaking of reports would then be required.

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What do you do with M->F or F->M, married gays or lesbians, group marriages, Fundamentalist Mormon polygamous marriages to sister wives, hermaphrodites (sexless persons with neither or both organs), hippie communes, Siamese twins, or whatever. M and F may be quite limiting. Another answer for Sex could be "yes", or perhaps the flag should be allowed to have other values, or TMG could come up with some.

I love your "yes" comment above. :)

 

I know nothing about software development and programming, but it seems as though there could even be some kind of user-defined tags that allow some flexibility (i.e., cover relationships that we might not even think about!).

 

Yes, I understand Judy is having difficulty getting what she needs - I've been in contact with her to work around the issues.

Terry is understating his input. He has been very patient with my questions both on and off the forum. Thanks, Terry!

 

 

(In my previous post, I'm seeing two responses in one message! Yet when I reply to it, as I am now, I see only one of those replies quoted. Weird . . . .)

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Therefore, hand editing that one person's data on any output to anything she desires can possibly achieve happiness for her.

I don't mind hand-editing -- once I learn what I have to do to make everything work. I've been using TMG for only about ten days, so I guess I have time. :D

 

And I hope this message doesn't attach itself to my previous one -- which somehow ended up being three messages in one even though I replied to separate messages.

Edited by Judy M.

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