18th century, a child is born. Mother is clearly unmarried. She lets the child being baptised three months later, then names a man as being the father. I create the Family with both parents, but select the type ‘None’ (instead of ‘Unmarried’). The father is nowhere to be found, so maybe a soldier? (A common occurance)
Almost two years later the same woman has a second child baptised, still being unmarried and at baptism named an other man as being the father. I created a new family, with second man, selecting Family type again as ‘None’
After that this mother had five more children baptised out of wedlock. In these five cases no father is mentioned. For these five I selected the type ‘unmarried’.
Now I feel this is an arbitrary decision and could have choosen either None, Unmarried or Unknown for all seven of the children. And probably have made a five extra Unnamed-male-person-records for five of the unmentioned fathers (which might also have been one man all together as being father). There are no other sources available for any of these baptisms.
I would be inclined to use “Unmarried” instead of “None”.
I can see why you would consider “None”. Unmarried carries with a notion that the couple lived together which does not seem to be the case in this scenario.
The last five children with the same father?? seem unlikely. But I would be inclined to place all the births in one ‘family’ with a not in the unknown father’s record that he possibly represents more than one person. For an unknown person in a family, I add ‘[unknown]’ to the Given name field creating a placeholder record.
I would probably do the same. If the Baptism has no father listed I usually use Unknown. I have children Baptized with no father listed, however the woman marries shortly after. I create the family with the husband and child however mark the relationship to the father as unknown. I try to minimize making single person families if I can. That probably is unavoidable in the case of five different “fathers”.
I have many records with just [unknown] or [unknown] with a surname if I know a daughter is married in an obituary, but it does not have anything else about her husband. Sometimes you know a son married with no more information.
One reason I do it this way is to have the record created contemporaneously with the other family records. It also provides a strong visual cue that information is missing.
I am working on this family today. The information so far comes from obituaries. I know the male Shelby had a daughter but with no mention of her mother. The female has the married name Ford. The [unknown] provides a strong representation.
Seemingly you do not mind the ever growing list unknowns.
I have chosen to not do that because the number of unknowns started to clutter my lists
and my mind
We do whatever works for us, right?
In my database on 8111 persons, I only have about 20 family’s with only one person entered. This may be because if the woman marries after the birth, I put the child into that family, especially if I see the child included on a Census with the other family members. With an unknown relationship to the father.
Registration of the birth of a ‘lifeless’ child. Which, according to law, is a exceptional deed within the registry of deaths. Basically the registration of the birth of a lifeless child, but since it was born lifeless (and thus died before any birth registration could be done) this date of birth is entered in the registry of deaths. Many a newby is stumped by this. The solution how to enter this is quite simple once you grab the concept. Create a personrecord. create birth-event with date mentioned in record, give the child the first name [LIFELESS] and required lastname, enter the death deed with its text and date as source.
There is the Stillbirth event type which is the same as lifeless. Sometimes the birth record will record the birth as stillborn while sometimes the death record records the event. More often than not, i believe these records are shunted off to a filing cabinet never to be accessed again.
The single Stillbirth event is used as a fallback event for both Birth and Death much like Baptism or Burial. The event can take the source/citation whenever or wherever found.
Rarely is a name given to these events. I use [unnamed] as the given name.
I prefer something more personal than [unnamed]. Keeping in mind the respect for the loss suffered by the family and soul that left this plane unfulfilled.
I totally understand. I use unnamed [NAAMLOOS] for children who were buried unbaptised (before 1812 mostly). According to church doctrine they ware unnamed. Even if you needed to wait a few days or more (flooding was a cause, or absent ministers were, etc) and the child died a day before baptism it was registered as unnamed when burried.
I have chosen to use de word LEVENLOOS (Litterally ‘without life’), reflecting what is in the deeds after 1811. Later in our history it became impossible to register an unnamed child. Which caused a lot of grief. A feeling the infant never even existed. Only a few years ago registering became possible again. The wording in the deeds however still hasn’t changed. It is possible however to name the child, which has helped much.
