Alternatives to husband/wife

[Peter Moylan]

I keep my family tree on-line

http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004

and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)

I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.

Any opinions?

[Tony Cooper]

On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

The "tree" program I have lists a couple as:

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location

Mary Ann James
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location

If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There are
no never-got-marrieds in our tree, but - if so - the space after m:
would be blank.

I don't see why any term is necessary.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There are
would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Thanks. That's an interesting idea. It's not totally compatible with my
one-web-page-person display format, where in your example John Morgan
Cooper would appear as the page heading but would not be listed
further down where Mary Ann James is introduced. Still, it might be
feasible to omit the spouse label altogether. I'll give it a try and see
how that affects the readability.

How does your format handle people who were married multiple times? It
seems to me that the "m:" label belongs to a couple, not to one person.
If you attach it to a person, it's not clear who was married to whom.

[Tony Cooper]

On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 14:01:33 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There are
would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Thanks. That's an interesting idea. It's not totally compatible with my
one-web-page-person display format, where in your example John Morgan
Cooper would appear as the page heading but would not be listed
further down where Mary Ann James is introduced. Still, it might be
feasible to omit the spouse label altogether. I'll give it a try and see
how that affects the readability.
How does your format handle people who were married multiple times? It
seems to me that the "m:" label belongs to a couple, not to one person.
If you attach it to a person, it's not clear who was married to whom.

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m1: dd-mm-yy location
m2: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location

Mary Ann James (m1)
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location

Elizabeth Susan Ramsey (m2)
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location

There is no indication that the second marriage was the result of
divorce or death.

In portrait chart form, the three entries above would be horizontal
with the offspring on the next level down. The tree lines connect the
right spouse with the offspring.

Too complicated to type out in the newsgroup.

The form I used was some stock computer program that I bought 20 years
ago or more. It was pretty simple to use, but won't work with my
current computer. The line ends with my children.

Note: All the names except "Cooper" are made up.

[Peter Moylan]

On 13/07/19 12:29, Tony Cooper wrote:

[term for a person's husband/wife/partner]

Post by Tony Cooper
I don't see why any term is necessary.

You're right! My updated tree is at

http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan&P=I004

and it looks legible to me.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Peter Moylan
[term for a person's husband/wife/partner]

Post by Tony Cooper
I don't see why any term is necessary.

You're right! My updated tree is at
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan&P=I004
and it looks legible to me.

P.S. I've only changed the English labels so far. Anyone whose browser
preferences are set to another of the supported languages will still see
the old format.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by Peter Moylan
[term for a person's husband/wife/partner]

Post by Tony Cooper
I don't see why any term is necessary.

You're right! My updated tree is at
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan&P=I004
and it looks legible to me.

Yes. It's legible. However, I was conscious of Mark's objection, and
decided not to put my own equivalent available to anyone.

[Mark Brader]

Yes. It's legible. However, I was conscious of Mark's objection...

I didn't object. I said I thought it was a bad idea.

[Lewis]

Post by Peter Moylan
[term for a person's husband/wife/partner]

Post by Tony Cooper
I don't see why any term is necessary.

You're right! My updated tree is at
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan&P=I004

Once it displays it looks quite readable, but it is rather slow to
render. That's a minor thing however, and it's fine for what you're
doing.

If you care, your link to http://pmoylan.org/pages/os2/wft.html appears
to be dead.

It's unlikely to be worth the effort, but you could certainly make the
page faster to render and also use actual HTML instead of <pre> tags to
format everything, but it's work for no real gain unless you’re into
that "oooo, this might be better" sort of churning.

I mean, I'd do it, but I once spent a couple of hours rewriting a perl
CGI I wrote about 20 years ago and then send more than 20 hours tweaking
the resulting php script to make the page "better" in ways no one was
ever going to notice.

Or the time I wrote a one-off bash script that ran a query against my
Plex database to give me the most recent ten movies added and then spent
weeks turning it into a script that would generate a web page that
showed the most recent 10 movies, but also allowed sorting the list by
name, release date, rottentomatoes rating, IMDB rating, or expanding the
list to 50, 100, or any arbitrary number of movies. Oh, and it also
added IMDB links. And then I....

Well, you get the idea, it turned into a whole web app and ...

I'm the only person ho ever uses it.

And it's still a bash script.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Lewis

Post by Peter Moylan
[term for a person's husband/wife/partner]

Post by Tony Cooper
I don't see why any term is necessary.

You're right! My updated tree is at
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan&P=I004

Once it displays it looks quite readable, but it is rather slow to
render. That's a minor thing however, and it's fine for what you're
doing.
If you care, your link to http://pmoylan.org/pages/os2/wft.html
appears to be dead.

Thanks. You've picked up an error in my page footer that I'd failed to
notice, and I've fixed it now. The "pmoylan.org" should have been
"www.pmoylan.org". The difference didn't matter in the past, but then I
was switched to an "improved" (but actually worse) broadband connection
that took away my fixed IP address. The combination of a server and
dynamic DNS has created some headaches.

Post by Lewis
It's unlikely to be worth the effort, but you could certainly make
the page faster to render and also use actual HTML instead of <pre>
tags to format everything, but it's work for no real gain unless
you’re into that "oooo, this might be better" sort of churning.

As I recall it, most of what my script produces is actual HTML. The
<pre> tags are only for the ascii art used to display the local subtree.
This is also the part that is slow to render - the rest seems fast
enough - but I don't want to abandon it because I find that part of the
display valueable. In part the slowness is because of a slow internet
connection, because, when you fetch something from my server, my ISP
actually counts that as an upload, and my upload speed limit is only
something like 1 Mbps.

A bigger factor is that it takes a long time for the script to generate
that picture, because to do so it's jumping all around many locations in
the GEDCOM file(s). I try to get around that by generating index files,
and also by having several specialised data caches, but the caches
aren't working as well as I would have liked and I don't have the
patience to diagnose the problem.

In any case, it ain't broke, so it's not worth fixing.

[HVS]

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There are
would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Just a passing thought -- and I might be misunderstanding what you're talking
about -- but doesn't that restrict the potential usefulness of the family
tree?

I'm a user rather than a compiler of such things, as they're useful when
you're trying to establish the inheritance/descent of land and other estates.
In that context, knowing if the parents were married or unmarried at the time
of birth is an important piece of information.

I think it's generally known that for many centuries, out-of-wedlock children
born in England weren't in line to inherit titles, landed estates, or
anything else. It's possibly less widely-known that prior to the Legitimacy
Act of 1926, that status did not change if the parents got married after the
birth: the child remained illegitimate. In short, the marital status of
someone's parents prior to the 20th century can potentially be very
significant.

I realise that this may be entirely irrelevant for the family trees you're
talking about, but given that someone else might find the information to be
useful it seems a pity not to include such information when it's known,
rather than omitting it because the software finds it difficult to work with.

[Tony Cooper]

Post by HVS

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There are
would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Just a passing thought -- and I might be misunderstanding what you're talking
about -- but doesn't that restrict the potential usefulness of the family
tree?
I'm a user rather than a compiler of such things, as they're useful when
you're trying to establish the inheritance/descent of land and other estates.
In that context, knowing if the parents were married or unmarried at the time
of birth is an important piece of information.

Yes, but that's a rather specialized interest. And, I don't think
anyone engaged in that specialized field would be relying on a
user-generated family tree.

Post by HVS
I think it's generally known that for many centuries, out-of-wedlock children
born in England weren't in line to inherit titles, landed estates, or
anything else. It's possibly less widely-known that prior to the Legitimacy
Act of 1926, that status did not change if the parents got married after the
birth: the child remained illegitimate. In short, the marital status of
someone's parents prior to the 20th century can potentially be very
significant.
I realise that this may be entirely irrelevant for the family trees you're
talking about, but given that someone else might find the information to be
useful it seems a pity not to include such information when it's known,
rather than omitting it because the software finds it difficult to work with.

I have a family tree that traces my ancestry back to the first
immigrant who arrived here in the 1700s and was naturalized in 1762.
It was originally compiled by a relative, but his efforts ended in the
1950s. I added the branches from the 50s until now, but only the
branches of my immediate relatives.

[HVS]

Post by Tony Cooper

Post by HVS

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does
the display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels
"husband" and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And
similar terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather
than "marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and
write "partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though,
that this could offend people who are married.

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There are
would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Just a passing thought -- and I might be misunderstanding what you're
talking about -- but doesn't that restrict the potential usefulness of
the family tree?
I'm a user rather than a compiler of such things, as they're useful
when you're trying to establish the inheritance/descent of land and
other estates. In that context, knowing if the parents were married or
unmarried at the time of birth is an important piece of information.

Yes, but that's a rather specialized interest. And, I don't think
anyone engaged in that specialized field would be relying on a
user-generated family tree.

Fair 'nuff, but trees (which often come up in on-line searches) can be used
as a starting point as part of a research framework when you're looking for
more authoritative sources.

So while not "relying" on them, I find that they can give useful pointers.
(It's similar to the only thing I've found Wikipedia to be useful for.)

Post by Tony Cooper

Post by HVS
I think it's generally known that for many centuries, out-of-wedlock
children born in England weren't in line to inherit titles, landed
estates, or anything else. It's possibly less widely-known that prior
to the Legitimacy Act of 1926, that status did not change if the
parents got married after the birth: the child remained illegitimate.
In short, the marital status of someone's parents prior to the 20th
century can potentially be very significant.
I realise that this may be entirely irrelevant for the family trees
you're talking about, but given that someone else might find the
information to be useful it seems a pity not to include such
information when it's known, rather than omitting it because the
software finds it difficult to work with.

I have a family tree that traces my ancestry back to the first
immigrant who arrived here in the 1700s and was naturalized in 1762.
It was originally compiled by a relative, but his efforts ended in the
1950s. I added the branches from the 50s until now, but only the
branches of my immediate relatives.

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

On Mon, 15 Jul 2019 15:55:54 GMT, Tony Cooper
<***@invalid.com> wrote:
[]

Post by Tony Cooper
I have a family tree that traces my ancestry back to the first
immigrant who arrived here in the 1700s and was naturalized in 1762.
It was originally compiled by a relative, but his efforts ended in the
1950s. I added the branches from the 50s until now, but only the
branches of my immediate relatives.

My family tree goes back to the first living being (evah!); but it'd be a
god awful job to trace it.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John
On Mon, 15 Jul 2019 15:55:54 GMT, Tony Cooper

Post by Tony Cooper
I have a family tree that traces my ancestry back to the first
immigrant who arrived here in the 1700s and was naturalized in
1762. It was originally compiled by a relative, but his efforts
ended in the 1950s. I added the branches from the 50s until now,
but only the branches of my immediate relatives.

My family tree goes back to the first living being (evah!); but it'd
be a god awful job to trace it.

I once saw a web site that traced one branch of my wife's family back to
Noah. There was a comment that the rest was in the Bible.

[RH Draney]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John
On Mon, 15 Jul 2019 15:55:54 GMT, Tony Cooper

Post by Tony Cooper
I have a family tree that traces my ancestry back to the first
immigrant who arrived here in the 1700s and was naturalized in
1762. It was originally compiled by a relative, but his efforts
ended in the 1950s.  I added the branches from the 50s until now,
but only the branches of my immediate relatives.

My family tree goes back to the first living being (evah!); but it'd
be a god awful job to trace it.

I once saw a web site that traced one branch of my wife's family back to
Noah. There was a comment that the rest was in the Bible.

I remember a cartoon once in which a couple of office workers are
sneering at their boss because "he can trace his ancestry back to the
first lungfish that crawled up onto dry land"....r

[John Ritson]

Post by RH Draney

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John
On Mon, 15 Jul 2019 15:55:54 GMT, Tony Cooper

Post by Tony Cooper
I have a family tree that traces my ancestry back to the first
immigrant who arrived here in the 1700s and was naturalized in
1762. It was originally compiled by a relative, but his efforts
ended in the 1950s.  I added the branches from the 50s until now,
but only the branches of my immediate relatives.

My family tree goes back to the first living being (evah!); but it'd
be a god awful job to trace it.

I once saw a web site that traced one branch of my wife's family back to
Noah. There was a comment that the rest was in the Bible.

I remember a cartoon once in which a couple of office workers are
sneering at their boss because "he can trace his ancestry back to the
first lungfish that crawled up onto dry land"....r

"I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic
globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I
can't help it. I was born sneering."

Pooh-Bah in "The Mikado"

[Peter Moylan]

Post by HVS

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There are
would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Just a passing thought -- and I might be misunderstanding what you're talking
about -- but doesn't that restrict the potential usefulness of the family
tree?
I'm a user rather than a compiler of such things, as they're useful when
you're trying to establish the inheritance/descent of land and other estates.
In that context, knowing if the parents were married or unmarried at the time
of birth is an important piece of information.

Yes; but most of the time, this information is unavailable. We record
the marriages when we can, but often the records cannot be found. If we
know that persons A and B were the parents of child C, that's important
information. If we know that C did not inherit the lands of A, that
might mean that A and B weren't married, but that's not at all certain.
We don't have enough information to form a conclusion.

Certainly it's interesting to trace property inheritance, but in most
cases that information is available only for the upper classes. Most of
us are descendants of the lower classes. If you had Usenet access, would
you be posting here?

[HVS]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by HVS

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does
the display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels
"husband" and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And
similar terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather
than "marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and
write "partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though,
that this could offend people who are married.

John Morgan Cooper
b: dd-mm-yy location
m: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James
b: dd-mm-yy location
d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There are
would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Just a passing thought -- and I might be misunderstanding what you're
talking about -- but doesn't that restrict the potential usefulness of
the family tree?
I'm a user rather than a compiler of such things, as they're useful
when you're trying to establish the inheritance/descent of land and
other estates. In that context, knowing if the parents were married or
unmarried at the time of birth is an important piece of information.

Yes; but most of the time, this information is unavailable. We record
the marriages when we can, but often the records cannot be found. If we
know that persons A and B were the parents of child C, that's important
information. If we know that C did not inherit the lands of A, that
might mean that A and B weren't married, but that's not at all certain.
We don't have enough information to form a conclusion.
Certainly it's interesting to trace property inheritance, but in most
cases that information is available only for the upper classes. Most of
us are descendants of the lower classes. If you had Usenet access, would
you be posting here?

I think I've been whooshed by that last question. Where is this "here"
that I'm supposed to be posting from? (I obviously have Usenet access, as
I'm posting to AUE using XNews. I first posted to the group some 18-and-a-
bit years ago; took a break for a few years (health stuff); and started
posting again earlier this year.)

As for the reason why I trace property inheritance, I do site and building
history research and advise on heritage issues for architects, developers,
and current property owners, and in that field property inheritance is much
more than simply "interesting" -- understanding who owned what and when
sheds light on how and why buildings and properties developed and changed
over time, and what's historically and architecturally significant.

[Cheryl]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by HVS

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

John Morgan Cooper
b:  dd-mm-yy  location
m:  dd-mm-yy  location
d:  dd-mm-yy  location
Mary Ann James
b:  dd-mm-yy  location
d:  dd-mm-yy  location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank.  There are
would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Just a passing thought -- and I might be misunderstanding what you're talking
about -- but doesn't that restrict the potential usefulness of the family
tree?
I'm a user rather than a compiler of such things, as they're useful when
you're trying to establish the inheritance/descent of land and other estates.
In that context, knowing if the parents were married or unmarried at the time
of birth is an important piece of information.

Yes; but most of the time, this information is unavailable. We record
the marriages when we can, but often the records cannot be found. If we
know that persons A and B were the parents of child C, that's important
information. If we know that C did not inherit the lands of A, that
might mean that A and B weren't married, but that's not at all certain.
We don't have enough information to form a conclusion.
Certainly it's interesting to trace property inheritance, but in most
cases that information is available only for the upper classes. Most of
us are descendants of the lower classes. If you had Usenet access, would
you be posting here?

A lot of people simply want to know their biological ancestry - I got
one enquiry (My tree is public on request) from someone who knew he was
descended from an illegitimate child, had a candidate in mind for the
father, and wanted to know if I had any further information about the
putative father. Unfortunately, I had no records, and had to point out
that in that time and place, it was extremely unusual for the father of
a child born out of wedlock to be recorded - unless they were one of the
few cases in larger settlements in which the mother sued for support, a
process that was apparently not, then and there, limited to the rich.

There are people who just want to know the connections, especially the
biological ones.

My great-great-grandfather never married my great-great-grandmother. She
used his surname, gave it to her son, and was apparently more or less
acknowledged by his family. I put them down as parents of the child, no
record of marriage - and if so careful a researcher as my second cousin
was unable to find any record of a marriage, I'm reasonably sure no
marriage took place. I think I've got a letter from a relative on file
describing their relationship as additional (if second hand) evidence.

Another couple got around to getting married some 15 years after they
started living together, according to a notation in the marriage
records. I put them down as married, with the date of the actual marriage.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by HVS

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that
does the display. Recently I have been criticised for using the
labels "husband" and "wife" for people who are not necessarily
married. (And similar terms in Danish, German, French, and
Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family"
rather than "marriage". It would be possible to go one step
further and write "partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to
me, though, that this could offend people who are married.

dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James b: dd-mm-yy location d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There
are no never-got-marrieds in our tree, but - if so - the space
after m: would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Just a passing thought -- and I might be misunderstanding what you're
talking about -- but doesn't that restrict the potential usefulness
of the family tree?
I'm a user rather than a compiler of such things, as they're useful
when you're trying to establish the inheritance/descent of land and
other estates. In that context, knowing if the parents were married
or unmarried at the time of birth is an important piece of
information.
I think it's generally known that for many centuries, out-of-wedlock
children born in England weren't in line to inherit titles, landed
estates, or anything else. It's possibly less widely-known that
prior to the Legitimacy Act of 1926, that status did not change if
the parents got married after the birth: the child remained
illegitimate. In short, the marital status of someone's parents
prior to the 20th century can potentially be very significant.

All family trees rely on two properties that we can call "mother-of" and
"father-of". In most (but not all) cases we can rely on recorded
"mother" events, but "father" information is a lot less reliable. In
passing, I might mention that those societies that used matrilineal
inheritance probably had the most accurate records.

If we want to know about inheritance of property, then the concept of
"legal inheritance" is of greatest interest. This is based on recorded
legal parentage, regardless of any biological connection.

The alternative, and the case that many of us now consider to be more
important, is based on biological inheritance. We look at true mother
and father relationships, regardless of what is legally recorded.

One factor that has brought that second approach to the forefront is the
growing pressure from adopted children to know their true parentage.
This is a major growing pressure that is becoming harder to ignore.

The other factor is the availability of DNA matching. This is having a
huge effect on family tree searching. I have been surprised myself about
how many results this is leading to. Given results of the form "A is
probably the second cousin of B", we can use a sort of triangulation to
conclude "C is probably the great-grandfather of both A and B", even
though person C has never had a DNA analysis. Given enough connections
of this kind, we can use cousin connections to deduce that someone is
the father of someone else. I have witnessed some impressive examples of
this reasoning.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by HVS

Post by Tony Cooper
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 11:59:31 +1000, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that
does the display. Recently I have been criticised for using the
labels "husband" and "wife" for people who are not necessarily
married. (And similar terms in Danish, German, French, and
Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family"
rather than "marriage". It would be possible to go one step
further and write "partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to
me, though, that this could offend people who are married.

dd-mm-yy location
Mary Ann James b: dd-mm-yy location d: dd-mm-yy location
If the date of marriage is not known, that space is blank. There
are no never-got-marrieds in our tree, but - if so - the space
after m: would be blank.
I don't see why any term is necessary.

Just a passing thought -- and I might be misunderstanding what you're
talking about -- but doesn't that restrict the potential usefulness
of the family tree?
I'm a user rather than a compiler of such things, as they're useful
when you're trying to establish the inheritance/descent of land and
other estates. In that context, knowing if the parents were married
or unmarried at the time of birth is an important piece of
information.

What this means is that inheritance trees are different from what most
of us call family trees. It's an interesting concept, and it uses most
of the same data and techniques. But it does not give the same answers.
Anything based on legal ancestry is based on uncertain information.

Post by HVS
I think it's generally known that for many centuries, out-of-wedlock
children born in England weren't in line to inherit titles, landed
estates, or anything else. It's possibly less widely-known that
prior to the Legitimacy Act of 1926, that status did not change if
the parents got married after the birth: the child remained
illegitimate. In short, the marital status of someone's parents
prior to the 20th century can potentially be very significant.
I realise that this may be entirely irrelevant for the family trees
you're talking about, but given that someone else might find the
information to be useful it seems a pity not to include such
information when it's known, rather than omitting it because the
software finds it difficult to work with.

[Lewis]

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

Of course. Also, the VAST majority of your ancestors would be horrified
at not being called "husband" and "wife". How seriously you take the
objections must largely be based on who is making the objections and
what the motivation is.

I mean, I don't hold marriage in any particularly high regard as an
institution and I obviously put no religious value on it, but I would
not want to be referred to as a "partner".

Post by Peter Moylan
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.
Any opinions?

The proper terms for a married man and woman are husband and wife, and
the fact that we are in the midst of societal upheaval right now and
seeing changing ideas of families doesn't change the past.

That said, the genealogy software definitely needs to be updated to
account for modern families were there may well be two mothers and no
father or two fathers and no mothers or a father and two mothers.

It really depends on what you, as the person creating the archive,
consider to be "a family."

I don't think the GEDCOM format has been updated in 20+ years, and that
is definitely going to be an issue. However, GEDCOM is an LDS format,
and they are unlikely to make changes to the official unofficial spec to
account for things like gay marriage. Or, as is the case with a friend
of mine a male-female marriage resulting in kids followed by a
female-female marriage also resulting in kids.

There are some other open source formats out there, but I don't know
much about any of them. I spent a lot of time on this stuff in the 90s,
but when it became apparent i was the only one who much cared, I decided
I didn't care enough to keep at it alone.

I have no idea if this is widely supported or not, but it is an open
source format and appears to have greater flexibility.

<http://www.gedcomx.org/Specifications.html>

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Lewis
I don't think the GEDCOM format has been updated in 20+ years, and
that is definitely going to be an issue. However, GEDCOM is an LDS
format, and they are unlikely to make changes to the official
unofficial spec to account for things like gay marriage. Or, as is
the case with a friend of mine a male-female marriage resulting in
kids followed by a female-female marriage also resulting in kids.

There was a GEDCOM 6.0, based on XML, but it looks as if nobody wanted
to adopt it, so the de facto standard is still version 5.5. I think
there was a general feeling that the XML format was clumsy.

Post by Lewis
There are some other open source formats out there, but I don't know
much about any of them. I spent a lot of time on this stuff in the
90s, but when it became apparent i was the only one who much cared,
I decided I didn't care enough to keep at it alone.
I have no idea if this is widely supported or not, but it is an open
source format and appears to have greater flexibility.
<http://www.gedcomx.org/Specifications.html>

Thanks. I've taken a quick look, but this looks like yet another
proposal that nobody is bothering to support.

The virtue of sticking with GEDCOM 5.5 is that this is the
upload/download format supported by on-line genealogical sites such as
Ancestry and MyHeritage. Also, it is what is supported by the main
available editors. (I use GenJ.)

Also, GEDCOM 5.5 files are very easy to parse, and compact enough to
make file I/O fast. That matters for a program like mine, where the
display of a single web page can require jumping to many different
records in the file, in non-sequential order, and also crossing between
different GEDCOM files.

[Lewis]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Lewis
<http://www.gedcomx.org/Specifications.html>

Thanks. I've taken a quick look, but this looks like yet another
proposal that nobody is bothering to support.

Ah, I thought one of the large non-LDS software packages was advocating
it, but that might have been a transitory thing.

Post by Peter Moylan
The virtue of sticking with GEDCOM 5.5 is that this is the
upload/download format supported by on-line genealogical sites such as
Ancestry and MyHeritage. Also, it is what is supported by the main
available editors. (I use GenJ.)

That's the trouble with standards that don't adapt, they lock you in to
inferior quality of data transfer and often leave you with no realistic
choice.

Post by Peter Moylan
Also, GEDCOM 5.5 files are very easy to parse, and compact enough to
make file I/O fast.

Sure, but no file format is going to be especially difficult, it's all
text. Your mobile phone can process millions of lines of text in less
time than it takes you to blink.

Post by Peter Moylan
That matters for a program like mine, where the
display of a single web page can require jumping to many different
records in the file, in non-sequential order, and also crossing between
different GEDCOM files.

That makes GEDCOM a WORSE choice, not a better one. The best choice for
that sort of use would be a structure data file (like XML or JSON) or a
database.

In fact, if I were doing the family genealogy now, I'd dump it into a
sql database and only deal with GEDCOM on the rare occasions I had to
export the data to somewhere else.

A little cruising around the googles and I see that quite a few programs
use SQLite databases already, though some lock the database up to prevent
you accessing it directly.

Having a database nackend for a website is, of course, how most of the
web works and it makes customizing output and queries much easier. Of
course, you have rto deal with learning the ways to deal with sqlite and
something like python of php to actually do the communication.

RootsMagic supposedly uses sqlite3 since version 4 (7 is current), and
they have a free version which might be worth taking a look at as this
site has a lot of resources for working with the database directly.

<https://sqlitetoolsforrootsmagic.com>

(I'm not recommending RootsMagic based on having used it, of course,
though it seems to have generally good comments and is reasonably cheap
and runs in various versions of Windows and sort of runs on macOS as
well.)

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Lewis

Post by Peter Moylan
Also, GEDCOM 5.5 files are very easy to parse, and compact enough
to make file I/O fast.

Sure, but no file format is going to be especially difficult, it's
all text. Your mobile phone can process millions of lines of text in
less time than it takes you to blink.

My mobile phone is, I suspect, much more powerful than the second-hand
computer that runs my web server.

Post by Lewis

Post by Peter Moylan
That matters for a program like mine, where the display of a
single web page can require jumping to many different records in
the file, in non-sequential order, and also crossing between
different GEDCOM files.

That makes GEDCOM a WORSE choice, not a better one. The best choice
for that sort of use would be a structure data file (like XML or
JSON) or a database.
In fact, if I were doing the family genealogy now, I'd dump it into a
sql database and only deal with GEDCOM on the rare occasions I had to
export the data to somewhere else.

I too would probably do it differently if I were starting the project
now. Back when I did start it, I didn't have enough spare memory and
disk space to support a suitable database. My records contain close to
10,000 people, so space mattered. By now, I would probably find that
that's not such a large database by today's standards, but there was a
time when running out of space was a major consideration.

(It doesn't seem all that long ago that a 500 MB hard disk was an
undreamed-of luxury.)

[Mark Brader]

I keep my family tree on-line...
Any opinions?

It's a bad idea.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Mark Brader

I keep my family tree on-line...
Any opinions?

It's a bad idea.

Because of spies digging up my family secrets?

[occam]

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Mark Brader

I keep my family tree on-line...
Any opinions?

It's a bad idea.

Because of spies digging up my family secrets?

I agree with Mark. Just because you and I cannot think of a good reason
right now does not mean someone with a more criminal mind will not come
along any time and find a way to abuse it.

Your argument falls in the same category as those who say: "I have
nothing to hide, let Facebook/Google/Amazon etc scour through my
emails/orders and discover what they will."

[Peter Moylan]

Post by occam

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Mark Brader

I keep my family tree on-line... Any opinions?

It's a bad idea.

Because of spies digging up my family secrets?

I agree with Mark. Just because you and I cannot think of a good
reason right now does not mean someone with a more criminal mind will
not come along any time and find a way to abuse it.
Your argument falls in the same category as those who say: "I have
nothing to hide, let Facebook/Google/Amazon etc scour through my
emails/orders and discover what they will."

It's a risk I'm willing to live with. A lot of family history research
requires sharing data with other people, and it's convenient to be able
to say things like "that's where you fit in my tree". I also have a less
up-to-date versions of the tree on two genealogy web sites, and it
wouldn't be too hard for someone with a criminal mind to go through that
information. I've also updated DNA data to a DNA-matching site.

The DNA matching is a little more risky, mostly because the insurance
industry has a strong interest in getting hold of people's DNA data. My
present feeling, though, is that the benefits outweigh the risks.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

This is a problem I have wrestled with, and, like you, I wrote my own
program for managing the information. If there are no children I tend
to ignore extramarital relationships. If there are then I put "X did
not marry Y" in the place where it might otherwise say "X married Y on
7th January 1888 in London". However, this system isn't fixed in stone
and I can change it if I find something better. Nowadays when many
couples see no necessity to get married before having children it's a
question that will come up more and more.

Post by Peter Moylan
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.
Any opinions?

[s***@gowanhill.com]

Post by Peter Moylan
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
Any opinions?

As Athel Cornish-Bowden commented later in the thread, "If there are no children I tend to ignore extramarital relationships."

If the only thing that matters is the bloodline then (because father and mother get confused by marriage, adoption, jiggling the sperm in the turkey-baster, etc) use 'sire' and 'dam' for the actual DNA-inputting parents.

I mean, if it's good enough for the Kennel Club ...

Might allegedly cause a few problems for some not-so-minor Royals though :-)

Owain

[Steve Hayes]

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

What about "Father" and "Mother"?

I have long used a program (FHS) where you simply enter the father and
mother of the person shown, if known, and they do not have to be married
to each other. If they are, then you can enter that as a marriage, but
entirely separately.

In that program you can choose either person for a Family Group Sheet,
and it will pu7t that person at the top, whether male or female, and it
will have the heading NAME: and the other person is SPOUSE: (whether they
are married or not).

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.
Any opinions?

Can it handle same-sex couples at all? HUSB and HUSB or WIFE and WIFE,
even though some of your descendants might prefer not to use those terms?

But as to the question, the legal status of the relationship is hardly
irrelevant, so you certainly need to be able to distinguish between
those that were legally married and those that weren't. (Did whoever
created GEDCOM not realize that some people are what used to be called
"illegitimate"?)

[Anton Shepelev]

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004

Loads very slowly for me.

Post by Peter Moylan
Recently I have been criticised for using the la-
bels "husband" and "wife" for people who are not
necessarily married.

Where are those labels on the page?

Say `father' and `mother', specifying `married' or
`unmarried' as required. Since the same couple may
have begotten both intra- and extramarital children,
you may want to make it a property of the child
rather than of the parents. "bastard" would be in-
sulting.

Post by Peter Moylan
I've already compromised to some extent by writing
"family" rather than "marriage". It would be pos-
sible to go one step further and write "partner"
instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though,
that this could offend people who are married.

And unmarried ones too. I suggest that you avoid
this business term, which is so ungly when applied
to people in intimate relationship.

Post by Peter Moylan
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, be-
cause the display comes from automatic translation
of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format doesn't
allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indi-
cate someone's parents.
Any opinions?

"father" and "mother", then? Or can you show cou-
ples with sexes without any label whatsoever?

[Cheryl]

Post by Anton Shepelev

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004

Loads very slowly for me.

Post by Peter Moylan
Recently I have been criticised for using the la-
bels "husband" and "wife" for people who are not
necessarily married.

Where are those labels on the page?
Say `father' and `mother', specifying `married' or
`unmarried' as required. Since the same couple may
have begotten both intra- and extramarital children,
you may want to make it a property of the child
rather than of the parents. "bastard" would be in-
sulting.

Post by Peter Moylan
I've already compromised to some extent by writing
"family" rather than "marriage". It would be pos-
sible to go one step further and write "partner"
instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though,
that this could offend people who are married.

And unmarried ones too. I suggest that you avoid
this business term, which is so ungly when applied
to people in intimate relationship.

Post by Peter Moylan
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, be-
cause the display comes from automatic translation
of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format doesn't
allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indi-
cate someone's parents.
Any opinions?

"father" and "mother", then? Or can you show cou-
ples with sexes without any label whatsoever?

That could get thoroughly confusing if you're tracing the relationships
of individuals. I've recently made another attempt to sort out the
biological relationships of three families (who almost certainly were
also more distantly inter-related, but I haven't found the energy to
look into that complication). In each of the three, the first wife died,
and there was a second marriage. The second marriage in all three cases
was with the same woman (I actually knew her, a lovely woman who was
said to have maintained excellent relationships with all of her
step-children). Documentation is a bit scanty (good birth records would
help) and census records don't always distinguish between children and
step-children, and it's not at all clear which mother is being referred
to in each case. Just writing "mother" when you have multiple mothers,
even in the days before modern reproductive technology, is far from clear.

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Anton Shepelev

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004

Loads very slowly for me.

And for everyone. That tree display requires looking up a great many
entries in GEDCOM files, which therefore can't be treated as
serial-access files.

But, personally, I find that tree display valuable, so I keep it there.
Note that the display becomes faster for people with fewer recorded
ancestors.

Post by Anton Shepelev

Post by Peter Moylan
Recently I have been criticised for using the la- bels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married.

Where are those labels on the page?

They are no longer there. I took Tony's suggestion and removed them.

Using one approach when the parents are married and another when they
are not doesn't work. There are just too many cases where a marriage
record is unavailable, or where it's not worth the effort of searching
for one.

[Snidely]

Post by Peter Moylan
And for everyone. That tree display requires looking up a great many
entries in GEDCOM files, which therefore can't be treated as
serial-access files.

You can serialize (sort of) those by maintaining a data structure where
the nodes only have the links, and using those links to select where to
read the full node datums. Whether those links are forward, backward,
or both depends on how you need to build the tree.

BTW, my GEDCOM-ish files were built when I still had a Handspring
device. There are two limitations to the datums I collected:
1) we don't know which Frankfurt the history we have starts at
2) we don't have my maternal grandparents' parents

/dps

[Peter Moylan]

Post by Snidely

Post by Peter Moylan
And for everyone. That tree display requires looking up a great
many entries in GEDCOM files, which therefore can't be treated as
serial-access files.

You can serialize (sort of) those by maintaining a data structure
where the nodes only have the links, and using those links to select
where to read the full node datums. Whether those links are
forward, backward, or both depends on how you need to build the
tree.

I do that by keeping an index file for each GEDCOM file. That helps, but
not enough.

With increasing main memory sizes, it might be sufficient just to
increase the size of my (program-internal) file caches. Some time I
should profile the code to see where most time is spent; perhaps when I
find my round tuit.

Post by Snidely
BTW, my GEDCOM-ish files were built when I still had a Handspring
device. There are two limitations to the datums I collected: 1) we
don't know which Frankfurt the history we have starts at 2) we don't
have my maternal grandparents' parents

[Snidely]

On Wednesday, Peter Moylan pointed out that ...

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Snidely

Post by Peter Moylan
And for everyone. That tree display requires looking up a great
many entries in GEDCOM files, which therefore can't be treated as
serial-access files.

You can serialize (sort of) those by maintaining a data structure
where the nodes only have the links, and using those links to select
where to read the full node datums. Whether those links are
forward, backward, or both depends on how you need to build the
tree.

I do that by keeping an index file for each GEDCOM file. That helps, but
not enough.
With increasing main memory sizes, it might be sufficient just to
increase the size of my (program-internal) file caches. Some time I
should profile the code to see where most time is spent; perhaps when I
find my round tuit.

I've found that it takes a lot of time to file off those square
corners.

Post by Peter Moylan

Post by Snidely
BTW, my GEDCOM-ish files were built when I still had a Handspring
device. There are two limitations to the datums I collected: 1) we
don't know which Frankfurt the history we have starts at 2) we don't
have my maternal grandparents' parents

/dps

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

Post by Anton Shepelev

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004

Loads very slowly for me.

Post by Peter Moylan
Recently I have been criticised for using the la-
bels "husband" and "wife" for people who are not
necessarily married.

Where are those labels on the page?
Say `father' and `mother', specifying `married' or
`unmarried' as required. Since the same couple may
have begotten both intra- and extramarital children,
you may want to make it a property of the child
rather than of the parents. "bastard" would be in-
sulting.

Post by Peter Moylan
I've already compromised to some extent by writing
"family" rather than "marriage". It would be pos-
sible to go one step further and write "partner"
instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though,
that this could offend people who are married.

And unmarried ones too. I suggest that you avoid
this business term, which is so ungly when applied
to people in intimate relationship.

That can depend on where you live. In the UK "partner" is often used for
each of a couple living together.
A formal "civil partnership" of a same-sex couple is in some ways the
legal equivalent of a marriage.
Further, in some contexts "partner" is used as a general term for a
spouse, civil partner or living-together person.

From "Citizens Advice":
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Living together and marriage: legal differences
This advice applies to England

Your legal rights as a partner may depend on whether you are married
or living together. Living together with someone is sometimes also
called cohabitation.

Post by Anton Shepelev

Post by Peter Moylan
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, be-
cause the display comes from automatic translation
of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format doesn't
allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indi-
cate someone's parents.
Any opinions?

"father" and "mother", then? Or can you show cou-
ples with sexes without any label whatsoever?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Peter Duncanson [BrE]

Post by Anton Shepelev
And unmarried ones too. I suggest that you avoid
this business term, which is so ungly when applied
to people in intimate relationship.

That can depend on where you live. In the UK "partner" is often used for
each of a couple living together.
A formal "civil partnership" of a same-sex couple is in some ways the
legal equivalent of a marriage.
Further, in some contexts "partner" is used as a general term for a
spouse, civil partner or living-together person.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/
Living together and marriage: legal differences
This advice applies to England
Your legal rights as a partner may depend on whether you are married
or living together. Living together with someone is sometimes also
called cohabitation.

Oo, let's do "common-law" again!

[John Varela]

On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 01:59:31 UTC, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.
Any opinions?

I guess the LDS assume all children are the product of marriage.

As for how to handle non-traditional couplings, here is one way:

Reunion.app for the Mac imports and exports GEDCOM files but
internally it always lists women with their birth names.

When there are children, in the "family view" it presents the
parents with options to label the union as "Marriage", "Common Law",
"Civil Union", "Domestic Partnership", or "Unmarried". And since
anything can be written in a Note to the coupling, one can write
whatever explanation or amplification is wanted. In one example in
my family tree I present one of my relatives as the son of his
nominal father, and added a note that everyone in the family
believed he was actually the son of his nominal father's sister's
husband, based on the fact that he was the spitting image of his
uncle. Photos on request.

You might want to take a look at Reunion.

[David Kleinecke]

Post by John Varela
On Sat, 13 Jul 2019 01:59:31 UTC, Peter Moylan

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.
Any opinions?

I guess the LDS assume all children are the product of marriage.
Reunion.app for the Mac imports and exports GEDCOM files but
internally it always lists women with their birth names.
When there are children, in the "family view" it presents the
parents with options to label the union as "Marriage", "Common Law",
"Civil Union", "Domestic Partnership", or "Unmarried". And since
anything can be written in a Note to the coupling, one can write
whatever explanation or amplification is wanted. In one example in
my family tree I present one of my relatives as the son of his
nominal father, and added a note that everyone in the family
believed he was actually the son of his nominal father's sister's
husband, based on the fact that he was the spitting image of his
uncle. Photos on request.
You might want to take a look at Reunion.

In my unfinished ancestor data base I give everybody a number -
0001 for the base person, 2n for person n's father, 2n+1 for
person n's mother. The, indexed by person number, I entered
date and location (when known) of birth, marriage and death.
Marriages were thus entered twice but that is a small cost.

Other matters would be in another data base but indexed the
same way.

[Anders D. Nygaard]

Post by David Kleinecke
In my unfinished ancestor data base I give everybody a number -
0001 for the base person, 2n for person n's father, 2n+1 for
person n's mother.

That might (will, if you go back far enough) make some persons have
more than one number.

/Anders, Denmark.

[RH Draney]

Post by Anders D. Nygaard

Post by David Kleinecke
In my unfinished ancestor data base I give everybody a number -
0001 for the base person, 2n for person n's father, 2n+1 for
person n's mother.

That might (will, if you go back far enough) make some persons have
more than one number.

You don't have to go back far at all...I know of at least four people in
my pedigree whose parents were first cousins....r

[David Kleinecke]

Post by Anders D. Nygaard

Post by David Kleinecke
In my unfinished ancestor data base I give everybody a number -
0001 for the base person, 2n for person n's father, 2n+1 for
person n's mother.

That might (will, if you go back far enough) make some persons have
more than one number.

Happens frequently. I just use one of the numbers in all the places.

In own tree a half dozen generations ago a pair of sisters married a
pair of brothers and the son of one pair married the daughter of
the other.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
     http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.
Any opinions?

Maybe this won't work for you, but what I would be inclined to do, if I
were starting from scratch, based on a bibliographic database I designed
in DataPerfect a few decades ago, is have a Relationship file,
containing entries that link two persons: it would contain the fields
Relationship Type (e.g., Marriage, Legal Partners, Living Together),
Start Date, End Date, Person1 Function (e.g., Partner, Husband, Wife),
Person2 Function (ditto). This would allow for documenting a couple who
initially live together and later get married. And maybe add fields to
indicate where the relationship started and ended (e.g. church, court)

Perce

[Adam Funk]

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

My wife didn't change her surname, so people sometimes assume we're
not married. Sometimes she'll say something like "So-and-so asked me
to tell my 'partner' that..." & I usually reply "Did you tell her
we're not living in sin?"

That's a joke, BTW, not actually being offended.

Post by Peter Moylan
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.
Any opinions?

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Peter Moylan
I keep my family tree on-line
http://www.pmoylan.org/cgi-bin/wft.cmd?D=moylan;P=I004
and I can control the format because I wrote the software that does the
display. Recently I have been criticised for using the labels "husband"
and "wife" for people who are not necessarily married. (And similar
terms in Danish, German, French, and Dutch.)
I've already compromised to some extent by writing "family" rather than
"marriage". It would be possible to go one step further and write
"partner" instead of husband/wife. It occurs to me, though, that this
could offend people who are married.

My wife didn't change her surname, so people sometimes assume we're
not married.

I don't remember that ever being assumed for us (not openly, anyway).
My wife kept her name when we married, for three reasons, (i) Chilean
women (and I think all women in the Spanish tradition) normally keep
their names when they marry; (ii) she had publications under her
unmarried name, and didn't want to "lose" those in databases; (iii) I
saw no reason to ask her to change.

Post by Adam Funk
Sometimes she'll say something like "So-and-so asked me
to tell my 'partner' that..." & I usually reply "Did you tell her
we're not living in sin?"
That's a joke, BTW, not actually being offended.

Post by Peter Moylan
This cannot be customised on a case-by-case, because the display comes
from automatic translation of a GEDCOM file, and the GEDCOM format
doesn't allow for labels other than HUSB and WIFE to indicate someone's
parents.
Any opinions?