Well, in theory, one would think that this would work. However, it doesn't. I've followed your exact procedural instructions several times. This is what happens:
Add the woman. Add the husband and set to divorced. Fine. So far so good.
Now add the second partner, who the woman neither married nor had a long-term relationship. I've selected "other". So far, so good.
Now add the child. When I add the child, it automatically adds him to the second "family" and shows the father as being married to the woman.
Now I go back and try to put in "other" again for that relationship. Fine.
Now, the child is no longer the child of the woman, but is the "natural" child of the man. It shows the woman as not being related!
Very exasperating!
I've tried it all different ways, and it all comes out the same. Either the child can be the natural child of two "married" people or the natural child of one and not related to the other.
I've added and deleted these four people over and over and over again, and it all turns out the same.
It's very frustrating, and if I can't figure it out, or if the software automatically "marries" the two parents, I won't be able to use this software program.
Yes, I know because I did these exact same steps - MANY TIMES, and still, what happens is that the second "spouse", which isn't a spouse at all, ends up being shown as the "husband" of the woman.
What's even worse is that the father of the illegitimate child is divorced from one woman and they had no children, and is now married to another woman. When I added all that into the mix, it shows the father of the illegitimate child as being married to the mother of the child, AND being married to another woman! And every time you go to the list of people, it shows the father of the child as being married to the mother of the child, when in fact, they were never married.
And obviously, you say you tried this yourself, but you couldn't have checked for the relationship factors AFTER you did these steps, because if you did, you would see that the "pop-up" relationship box that shows whenever you put your mouse on a name, would have shown you that the father of the child was still the "husband" of the mother, even though they never married. You know, if the woman was raped, that would be very offensive.
People in this family are very sensitive to this issue, and I'm not going to publish something to a website, or use software that can't acknowledge illegitimate children or children born out-of-wedlock.
I've decided to go with another software package and so now I really would like to take my family site down from Heritage.com, but can't find a way to delete that, either. In fact, in opening one file that was sent to me - of totally unrelated people to my family - heritage.com not only opened the file, but uploaded it. So now I basically have a cemetery list that shows as my family! This is absolutely the WORST software ever! I've deleted it from my computer.
It sounds like the issue you are experiencing is not with the ability to add people/second marriages/etc in your tree in Family Tree Builder, but rather after publishing the tree, how different areas of your family site display that information.
From the standpoint of the system the relationships that are calculated on your family site are completely different as far as coding, and therefore, troubleshooting are concerned.
I know you said you have decided not to use Family Tree Builder anymore, and that is fine, but if you would like, I am willing to continue to help you. I'll need you to tell me the exact places where the relationship is shown incorrectly.
If a tree was published even if you didn't intend to publish it, you may have the automatic backup feature turned on. If you open Family Tree Builder and click on Tools > Options > Publishing you should see a field titled "Publish projects automatically to my sites". Click on the YES in this field to change it to NO. This will prevent your family trees from being published automatically as a backup.
I can delete your family site for you. Just send me the URL of the family site.
I'm currently looking at a couple of genealogical software alternatives that are NOT associated with the Mormons. For some reason, I think that's part of the problem, because they have some weird beliefs concerning marriage and children. Maybe that's why their software seems to have no problem showing men married to multiple women!
It is curious that Mormons are prominent in genealogy software... I don't know the exact roots of the MyHeritage and FTB software, but the company founders certainly have nothing to do with Mormons and seem to have enough technological know-how to move things along:
My previous efforts in setting up a family tree were in DOS days using organisational software, so it was very limited and I did not get very far. Recently a public institution that has a genealogy dept which holds certain types of trees sent me a tree established by someone else but containing us, because I wanted to update it.
They recommended MyHeritage FTB, which I downloaded and with which I imported the GEDCOM file. I am still working on amendments.
I don't know anything else but I find FTB dead easy to use, though I can see issues such as yours looming. I have problems with understanding the definitions of Immigration, Settlement, Move etc. There is no compendium of terms. Then I see that (non-marriage) name changes are not displayed even in FTB, One has to go into the details of individuals to find them.
This 'main' tree is now too big to publish on the web for free and I am not sure I would want to. However, I built a small tree (28 members) for another family from scratch and published it, as an exercise to see how the systems worked.
Nevertheless, given the complexity of real life, I think FTB is still great and the owners appear to be dealing with bugs and trying to make improvements.
I don't know how stiff the competition for free apps is, but online there is a lot, Google's Geni must be pretty big.
Actually, heritage.com is indeed affiliated with the LDS church. In fact, if you look at the software, there's even an icon that says "temple", and you also have the option to upload your gedcom to them. I've read that the LDS (Mormons) have this thing about "sealing" marriages and also about being able to get their dead relatives into the "celestial kingdom", as they call it. At any rate, if you play around with their software, you'll see what I mean.
I'm currently checking out The Master Genealogist software and Roots Magic. I'll post my thoughts on that. It is frustrating, though, when you're doing family genealogies and dealing with sometimes complex relationships. For example, you might see a woman whose husband dies, and she remarries - her husband's brother. You can imagine the problems that arise with software on that one!
As far as LDS software goes, whether you're dealing with Legacy, Heritage, Family Tree maker, etc., they're all Mormon-based. They have probably the biggest genealogy research project and database on the planet.
MyHeritage.com is start up founded by Gilad Japhet in 2003 in Bnei Atarot, Israel.
We are a privately help company and not affiliated with any LDS church or "Mormon-based" companies.
Here is a link to the MyHeritage.com wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyHeritage
Here is a link to our company profile on TechCrunch (a highly ranked independent technology blog): http://www.crunchbase.com/company/myheritage.
MyHeritage.com may have been conceived in Israel, but our goal is to provide tools for genealogists of all creeds. Genealogy is a shared passion of people from around the world. We didn't work so hard to make our products available in 34 languages for nothing.
Our Family Tree Builder software does have facts such as baptism, child sealing, endowment, etc. for LDS users. It also has facts for users of many other religions and nationalities.
As for the complex relationship you mention, it is possible to create this "widow who married her husband's brother" relationship in Family Tree Builder using the Attach Spouse option.
As it happens "temple" is also a term widely used by American Jews to refer to the synagogue, and the marriage to which you refer could be, depending on circumstances, a levirate marriage, and was practised by the Israelites and other ancient peoples:
It is highly likely Mormons acquired the custom from the Hebrew Bible. Given that the MyHeritage founders are Jewish and (now) genealogy specialists, at least some of them should be aware of this marital arrangement, even if very rare (among Jews) nowadays.
Whatever it is, I look forward to your comments on the alternatives.
Are we limited in the number of family trees that can be published with a Premium Plus membership? I have four trees that I want to publish. Whenever I publish the third tree it overwrites the oldest. In FTB all four show they are published.
When you publish a tree from Family Tree Builder, if it is the same tree as one that you have previously published to your family site, with the same name, then it will replace the previously published tree that was on your site.
If you rename the tree, then it will publish the tree as a new tree.
These are new trees. I exported my main tree to Gedcom. Then I split that tree into four trees. Then I imported three of the Gedcom files to new projects. So now with 4 trees it doesn't matter which tree or what order I publish them, only the last two will appear.
Please give me the path for the currnt FTB version full installer. The one available on your site gives a samll file which in turn downloads the full installer.
Last time some one from support group pointed me to a link from where I downloaded FTb 4.0 full installer - family_tree_builder_916_p.exe.
My home pc does not have internet so I need to download it at work adn then copy at home
i have one person in 2 places in my family tree, how can i fix that...my uncle''s daughter is married to my brother(akward i kno, but some common in alot of cutures). is it possible to marge it so that my sister in law can go under my uncle's daugher and under my brother's wife without me haveing to create a brand new branch? if u dont understand my question, i'll post u my information
I sent a GED File to a family member and she said my family was not on it,it stopped with my mother. can you explain.
Also I am unable to open =My Heritage programme ,I keep getting a pop up which tells me to go to publishing, but when I try to another pops upto sau Windows is shutting it down.
Be grateful for help and a solution.Kind regards Joyce
I sent a GED File to a family member and she said my family was not on it,it stopped with my mother. can you explain.