How do you link your 'Known unknowns'? It's all relative!

[emyoulation]

I’m wondering how other Gramps users link in relatives of unspecified lineage.

There are 3 specific variants:

1. A DNA match 2nd to 4th cousin. (Beyond that seems too distant to address simply)

2. direct Ancestor with a known number of ‘removes’

3. direct Descendant with a known number of ‘removes’

I might even know the ahnentafel number of the ancestor. But if there are unknown generations, how can they be linked?
(2 specific examples of variant 2:

• my 4th great grandfather Henry Ferree was certainly a great-grandson of madame Marie Ferree but we don’t know through which son’s son.
• My McCullough great-great-granduncle has a biography that says his great-grandfather, W. Simpson, fought in the Continental Army. I haven’t identified any such ‘Simpson’ line among my 5th great-grandfathers branching through him yet.)

For variant 3, let’s assume an obituary for a Tom Jones where the deceased had at least 5 daughters, 3 of whom married into the Smith family (2 brothers & a cousin). But, except for the widowed daughter, all the daughters are listed by their husband’s given name … plus there are a half-dozen assorted Smith grandchildren. You have no idea which daughter or children is connected to which son-in-law.

The only valid thing that I can think of is:
to add Associations between the floating person and where the implicit Relationship structure was disrupted. (And a bonus Association between myself and that 5th great-grandfather.)

But, while that might help in to Deep Connections gramplet and embed linked text in the body of the Narrated Website, it won’t help me in charts or improve my chance of merging the floater in the future.

Maybe I should create a pseudo-people line of placeholders? Or, Link the floaters in a ToDo type Note?

[PLegoux]

@emyoulation

For variant 3, let’s assume an obituary for a Tom Jones where the deceased had at least 5 daughters, 3 of whom married into the Smith family (2 brothers & a cousin). But, except for the widowed daughter, all the daughters are listed by their husband’s given name … plus there are a half-dozen assorted Smith grandchildren. You have no idea which daughter or children is connected to which son-in-law

For the 6 Smith children, I will create 6 persons alive on the date of their uncle’s death, I will link them to no families but I will associate a note each to them; I will then attach the 6 notes to each of the 3 Smith/McCullough families.

@emyoulation

my 4th great grandfather Henry Ferree was certainly a great-grandson of madame Marie Ferree but we don’t know through which son’s son.

(looks like frenchy probably Ferrée and not Ferree)

you could create as many fake families between Henry and Mary as Mary has sons and link the unknown father of the fake families one by one to one of Mary’s sons (but nothing says that Mary does not have another son than you do don’t know who Henry’s grandfather would be)

@emyoulation

The only valid thing that I can think of is:
to add Associations between the floating person and where the implicit Relationship structure was disrupted. (And a bonus Association between myself and that 5th great-grandfather.)

So you could not create fake families, just create associations between Henry and Marie as great-grandson and add a shared note to these associations telling they are probably related. Using a link to these two people in that note should connect them in both Deep Connections and reports

@emyoulation

• My McCullough great-great-granduncle has a biography that says his great-grandfather, W. Simpson, fought in the Continental Army. I haven’t identified any such ‘Simpson’ line among my 5th great-grandfathers branching through him yet.)

There too, you could create a single person W. Simson and connect him to your McCullough GGGUncle thru both associations and a note linked to their person records