Is there anyway you can add a not married selection?

Question

My mother's parents were never married & it throws a loop into the profiles. And in this day & age many people are choosing not to get married.

Answer 1

I spent some time yesterday looking into this question too. There looks to be a lot of people looking for the same solution. It's not even a modern convention, plenty of cultures don't have 'legal' marriages but live as spouses. Some don't even have a concept of marriage but still have relationships that are just as valid as formal marriage.

At any rate, the best solution I have seen other folks suggest is:

1. Set people as spouses
2. Don't set the location (this should be used to confirm formal/officiated/legal marriage/marriage-like ceremonies since these sorts of records include location)
3. State the year (not exact date) the relationship started (and ended if relevant).
4. Describe in the biography what their relationship status was, including any relevant details (you could include a location e.g. where people met or first lived together, etc. and exact date here).

(Apologies for the lack of a good descriptor word that's inclusive of all spouse type relationships - I can't currently think of one catch-all word in English that includes formal and informal marriage, de-facto relationships, common-law marriages, civil unions, situationship, and all other committed relationships)

Comments

Yep, that's exactly part of my point. There is so much variation between countries and cultures that restricting the spouse field to just "marriage" (whether that's common-law marriage, civil marriage, religious marriage, etc.) doesn't capture how millions of humans live.

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Sam is quite right that people can be marked as spouses on WikiTree if they were in a committed relationship but not formally married.

See this authoritative answer from Jamie Nelson on 9 December 2021:

If the people considered themselves married, then they can be attached as spouses in WikiTree even if they weren't officially married. Just explain the lack of a date in the biography.

Similarly Jamie wrote on 24 September 2022:

If they considered themselves as spouses, you can still add them as married even if there wasn't a formal ceremony. Just make sure to explain things in the biography.

As Sam says, if the relationship started at a known time, you can use that in the marriage date field, maybe marked "about".

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The problem with this solution is that WikiTree then displays them in other areas as "husband of" and "wife of" when that is inaccurate.

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It's not inaccurate if they considered themselves as husband and wife, or spouses.

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I agree with that Jillaine. But that is a Wikitree issue not a user issue. I have recorded my previous relationship - my partner was abusive and we never married (for which I am now glad) but Wikitree displays him as a "husband". Which is certainly not accurate for defining our relationship (legally de-facto) nor is it sensitive for me as a survivor.

However, since he is the father of my children and we did indeed have a committed relationship, it's still important for the relationship to be entered.

And that's just my personal set of circumstances. There are so many wide variety of committed relationships that aren't marriage but that are just as valid as "marriage" and SHOULD be recognised in the software. It's exclusionary to do otherwise which doesn't work for what is supposed to be a world tree.

I hope that Wikitree Team fixes this but in the mean time we have to just work around the limitations.

Answer 2

At this time all you can do is to state it in their biography.

Answer 3

When you are in edit mode go to "Spouses" on the right hand "Edit Family" list and check the "No spouses" box.  The line for spouse won't show on the profile after you save and refresh.  You can do the same for "No children" and "No Siblings" where those are appropriate.