How to record legal status of illegitimate children?

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1

Gramps 608 under Fedora 44, KDE Plasma desktop

I find a child with a complex filiation legal status.

He was born in a “regular” family and recorded by the civil clerk as the son of the spouses. However, later, a court decision ruled the husband was not the father and therefore became “illegitimate out of an unknown father”. The couple divorced some time later.

The former wife even later married the biological father and the child became a legitimate one with the legal rights attached to this status, among which usage of the father’s name.

Regarding names, I know how to record this hectic history with alternate names associated to periods of time. These are properties of a Person.

However, I am a bit puzzled by the filiation history. When I meet illegitimate children, I create a new family, eventually with no father in case he is unknown, and that is all because up to now cases were simple: single mother, eventually marrying later.

Here, I have an “alien” child who is legally under the responsibility of the supposed parents for some time. Consequently, if a Family record is not simply a biological report but also encompasses constraints imposed by law (such as protection, responsibility vs. others, ailment, education, …), I must record this child inside the legal family. But the built-in relationships don’t provide an adequate description of the “parenthood”.

I can add custom cheated or betrayed. Is there a better solution (or wording)?

The second problem is the child will be a member of two families (the family legally existing when he was born defined by default being his “official” family; and the family of the biological parents both under unmarried and married status – the periods are distinguished by the date of birth compared to the date of marriage).

Does it make sense to have a child in two families (according to genetics, a person can have only one father) ? The relationship to parents has no date property.

I am aware that adding a “binding period” to parenthood relationship in the vast majority of cases where there is no question about who the parents are and the bound last until the death of the participants, would be useless fuss.

2

cuckold seems like a better fit. You could also use that relationship for both parents when children are switched at birth

3

The child can have more than one set of parents.

Family at time of birth, the relationship to the mother is “Birth” but the relationship to the father is now known to be “Stepchild”, “Foster”, or “None”.

Then there is the second family where the child has the relationship “Birth” for both parents.

You would do the same type of family arrangement if the the child was adopted.

Note, you may want to list the order of the parents families for the child with the biological father first. Reports and charts like the Pedigree view display the first set of parents found.