The case of the UnKnown Spouse

Some times you will see, in a People Workspace, Person View the term "[unknown spouse]

Just above the Marriage Date is that [unknown spouse] entry.

In this case, there was a gentleman with no children, NO Spouse entered. The key is that there is that marriage date.

The above is in People Workspace, TreeView

This is different from an "unknown" spouse if you have a Spouse with a Child.

Clicking on the Person menu, select Attach/Detach option and DETACH

Put a check mark in the Unknown Spouse "name". You need to watch IF there are Children.

In the case of one spouse and a child, without a Marriage Date, that "unknown spouse" may appear in the Person View, but nothing to Detach.

For my screen capture example, putting a Check Mark RESOLVED that Unknown Spouse, but the Tree View did NOT Change.

I have not found an easy way to find these "unknown spouse" entries, but they usually come from a Merge.

I found this one, by running a Marriage Report, Sorted by Wife, then looked for a Marriage Date at the Bottom of the list.

There is a Caution Here. That is the Marriage DATE will be removed. So, BACK UP your file before you do this OR, If you don't like the results, immediately do a Edit, UnDo

_______________________________________________________________
Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Facebook Question: Not enough Information

Here is a question from Facebook:

How do you enter these facts so you know there is no more research to be done.

1. There is no spouse
2. There were no children

Looking for suggestions and/or standards.

Standards, no; suggestion, no, but will answer How I handle this;

I enter what I know from Documentation and Cite the Source of that information. I have a 0 Undocumented FACT policy for my file.

I'll answer #2 first, as it is the easiest. In a word Nothing. I don't guess if the had children or didn't have children. I have blog post that talks about No Children.

FTM2014 - Marriage, No Children

To answer #1, I have two answers

That question implies that the subject person was married. If I have a record that the person was married, just don't know the name, I will use my "unknown name" standard of 5 Underscores. If I find a record that infers that a female married and the record provides her married name, I would enter 5 Underscores plus her Married Name.

_____ _____ for the unknown name
 _____ MarriedName if that is what the record shows.

The marriage Fact needs to reflect something that reminds me that I don't have a record of the marriage.

People Workspace, Tree View, where you see relationships.

Here is an example of a Father who has children, but I don't know the Mother's name, no do I know IF there was a marriage

There is a 1 in the spouse ICON but there is no information in the "Spouse" field. I enter 5 underscores.

That is a visual to me, there I don't know the name. I see that in the Index on the Left of the Screen.

Now, I don't know if they married. I go to the People Workspace, Person View, and select the Relationship Tab, go down to that unknown spouse and on the right, select the pull down menu and select Unknown.

So the relationship is now correct.

The 5 underscores are my visual about the name, but I need to find the name, But what about "was there a marriage. My ToDo List is where I put that.

The Tasks Tab and clicking New on the Left (not shown) will open the Add Task for box, where I entered "Did William Andrews ever marry? then click Edit to put it into a Category. In this case, my Follow up Category.

The task list is always in the Plan Workspace and in the Task List for this person. Not seen on the left is that I already have 10 other Tasks for him. All in different Categories.

I hope that answers the questions from Facebook.
_______________________________________________________________
Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington

Unknown Spouse Created in Error

The purpose of this Blog entry is to show how to resolve an "Unknown Spouse" entry in Version 2009 (18.0.0.305) caused be a data entry problem.

While working on the People, Family screen information was being added to a Child, as seen below:



















Figure 102

The child is hi-lighted above and note the Right Panel Marriage fact.











Figure 103

In the People, Person screen, there are No Shared Facts.

























Figure 104

While entering Dates for this child, the Death Date was entered in the Marriage Date field.












Figure 105

This entry created a Shared Marriage Fact, with [unknown spouse] listed as the name with the Shared Marriage date of 1870.











Figure 106

The "unknown spouse" and date is in the Right Panel as well.

To resolve this, return to the People, Family Screen.

















Figure 107

Click on the Add Spouse button, below the focus person and enter a Name. In this Example, "Unkown Spouse" was entered.

Going back to the People, Person screen:













Figure 108

This show the "Unknown Spouse" name as entered in Figure 107.

Just deleting the person will NOT remove the "shared fact". Return to the People, Family screen:

















Figure 109

Delete the Marriage Date and answer OK to the Warning Message.

Locate the name used, in the Index (F2) or the Left Panel, in this case "Spouse, Unknown":
























Figure 110

Right click on that name and select Delete Person.

















Figure 111

Select Yes to the Delete Person Warning Message.

Figure 112

Returning to the People, Person Screen the Shared Facts have been removed.