sperm & egg show disrespect for marriage certificate

+3 votes
492 views
Cannot add replacement grandfather without a source.

Sorry, the sperm & egg that produced my father did not bother to check who was on the marriage license.  Union was a secret.

I cannot produce a true tree if I cannot put in the parents that are the biological ones.  I have found several of these un-documented unions resulting in children.  Wikitree needs a better "fix" for this problem.  Otherwise I will have to remove my account and tree info of about 10,000 people.
WikiTree profile: Jan Van Kort
in Genealogy Help by Jan Van Kort G2G2 (2.1k points)
edited by Julie Ricketts

"Cannot add replacement grandfather without a source": you obviously have a source of some kind. (I suspect a DNA test?) Just cite it. Heck, sometimes for very recent people, "personal knowledge of so-and-so" is the only type of source available, and that's perfectly fine. Anything that answers the question "how do you know this?" is a valid source.

I have cousins who shouldn't be cousins and a lack of cousins that should exist.  It boils down to one man, the only one with the opportunity.  The event happened in 1916, no-one is alive to remember
the form page for entering a father is not accepting the answer placed into the source box.

This is what is called an NPE, at a time period of our culture when mothers would probably not acknowledge such an event.

DNA shows I have very close cousins that shouldn't exist.  Cousins that aren't possible with the names on the birth-certificate.
Jan ... I have to step away for a little bit, but I've added some tags to your question so others will see it more easily.

I'll also see if I can get a mentor or two to pop over here and give you a hand.

Well, just saying, if you decide to close your account the 10,000 profiles you created or loaded in by gedcom will remain at WikiTree.  Help:Ownership and Control

the tree is incorrect and bad data
Incorrectly connected can be corrected by detaching the one profile from the other profile and if there is a better place to attach it, now that it is detached, then that is done, it is attached.
It would be nice to see some sources with the profiles you have added up to now. All just say 'Ancestry.com', which is extremely wide and not very helpful.

Can you please explain what you mean with 'the tree is incorrect and bad data'? Which profiles, which sources are wrong?

1 Answer

+12 votes
Hi, Jan ...

You can connect whomever you need to as the parents of your father, even if they weren't married.

Check out this help page: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Unmarried_Parents

If you need more help with those instructions, please let us know.
by Julie Ricketts G2G6 Pilot (481k points)
I tried that, doesn't work.  the form I'm filling out is demanding a source.

I made the paperwork father a non-biological parent and the mother as not married.

It's broken

Well, yes, we need a source. If this is a contemporary situation, you can add your personal knowledge as a source.

It looks like you've had a DNA test, correct? And this DNA doesn't match with the man who you currently show as your grandfather?

Do you have the name and dates for the man who was your biological grandfather? In other words, is there a profile for him yet?

Yes, my profile shows I've had a dna test.  I don't match to my grandfathers known family (Little).  I do match to my grandmothers known family (Ennis).  I match to the Williams and Hickam families.

I've tried adding this new father who died 55 years ago and the box for source is not accepting "DNA" for a source.  Even after marking the paper father as non-bio and the mother as not married to the real bio father.

I think I should just close the account and delete all data
Jan .. dna is probably not accepted because it is only 3 letters long.  Try adding an extra couple of words, such as "dna results from (date)".
Well, Jan, I know this can be frustrating, but I don't think it will be necessary to close your account. :-)

So, let's just take some time to figure out what needs to be done.

If all that's holding you up is that the text box won't accept "DNA" it's because there's a minimum number of characters that you need to put in. So, for now, you could put in something like "Personal information from DNA test. Details to be entered in the near future."

Then, once we get that all set up, we can help you write up a DNA confirmation citation that will show what you know.
Hi, Jan, I am a Mentor, so I will try to help you.

One thing you said above is that you have the non-biological father attached already.  Is that correct and now you want to add the biological father?  If that is true, you want to 'replace' the non-biological father with a biological father.  We don't allow a person to have 2 sets of parents attached to them.  The non-biological father's information can be added to the biography, but you can't have both attached to any profile.
I clicked on the replace father button and the form won't let me complete the task.  it wants a source and is not accepting english
I sent you a private message.  We might be able to send screenshots back and forth easier, if that is needed.
I don't know what is going on, but it worked about 5 minutes ago.  I closed/logged out.  Tried to re-enter the data and it worked.  Thanks for the help
Jan --

It sounds like Linda has you headed in the right direction now.

Thanks, Linda, for picking this up!!

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