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.
4 Responses
I have had to watch out for children and step children on a number of families. During the early 1900s young mothers may have died from childbirth, and a stepmother came in to help raise them. I have been surprised at the number of woman who became the second wife, especially during the early 1900s.
Some of the database tools out there allow for multiple parents. I use #RootsMagic for this as it allows me to select the parent relationship for each parent. This allows me to add the person but make updates as new evidence comes to light.
There are cases where the illegitimate child of a daughter is described as her own child by a mother – I take it this was to avoid scandal etc. In one case I only came across the truth, because the daughter was missing from one census, bur reappeared 10 years later back at home with a 10 year old “sister”, born in a different town. On searching that town, I found the daughter, so she had clearly been sent away to have the baby
In the 1940 US Census, my second cousin is living with his great-aunt (my grandmother) and her husband and is listed as “step-son” of head of household. If I didn’t know the real relationship, I would assume that he was my grandmother’s biological son!