Are They Lumping All the Children Together?

Obituaries, online compilations, and other materials may list as “children” individuals who are actually the person’s biological children, their step-children, their spouse’s step-children from a previous marriage, etc. There is also the possibility that their biological children do not all share the same biological parent.

Be careful entering these names and the relationships in your database until you have a better idea of who is the parent of whom. Indicating that your relative raised non-biological children as their own is advised though as it helps to explain the connections that exist among people. In some families it is better to write a summary of the individuals and relationships involved before forcing that data into a genealogical relationship database.