My Wikitree ID is belskey-1 and it doesnt seem right for the first belskey on wikitree to have 0% BELSKEY DNA

Question

I was born Belskey even though I have no DNA.  My WIKITREE ID is belskey-1 with 0% BELSKEY DNA. My father Belskey-2 and his brother Belskey-5 were adopted by his stepfather, George Belskey-6 when he was young. his mother did not marry his birth father because he was already married.

There is my family of 7 and my uncles family of 3 adult kids and their kids that are all Belskey's with no blood relations will also be added. I want to be linked to my step-grandfather and my biological grandfather without having to put my step grandfather, Belskey, in the notes or in the biography.

Wikitree wont let me enter more than one father, no mattter if it is confirmed or nonbiological.  Can I request a change be made? I just don't know what to do.

I posted this question worded differently last night. Im hoping my new words explain things better.

Answer 1

It's okay to be Belskey-1 and have a different last name from your biological ancestors. Adoption is only one of many reasons why surnames can change.

Comments

This is the answer I'm going to have to choose because I've been thinking about it way too much and this answer is the only answer that doesn't get me worked up.  I still think the policy should be changed to allow a biological and non-biological father with the same person because thats the way real life is. (Not everybody's life is a  storybook fairytale).  I feel that extra link to the extra father is critical to telling one's story correctly  and stating it in the biography is not the same as being linked with family members  at the top if the profile. I am frustrated that I can't tell my story correctly.  I am actually quite upset.. that's the end of that.

Topic closed

Answer 2

IN your father and uncle's profiles you can put their adopted father in as a father and mark the relationship as not biological. Your father and you, of course, had a biological relationship.

Comments

I know that already and have done that. BUT I have a whole bunch of Crows to connect to biologically.  I think something needs to change.

---

In which case, you have your biological relatives attached and your father's and uncle's adopted relatives mentioned in the family Bios. Their names at birth should be unknown. Do the Crows attach through the parent who adopted the boys? Or are they the bio family of your father and uncle.

No matter how you do it you are going to have at least one place where someone isn't attached as a parent.

Mark this message for technical support to get a wider dissemination.

---

As the help pages about adoption indicate, we have to make a choice of what to put in the father field-- either birth father or the adoptive father. It's one or the other; we can't have two fathers for a given person-- not in the father data field, anyway. Wikitree recommends that for profiles of people with no immediate connections to living people, that we use the father field for biological father. If there are connections to living people, you can choose which one to put there.

 

---

When you say mark do you mean flag?  because I just flagged hoping someone higher on the totem pole might see what I'm talking about.

---

 my father's birth records show him as Robert George Belskey.  I guess being adopted the state or some other entity went and altered the documents. Since both my grandmother and my father have passed I'm assuming he was born with the last name Selby, which is my grandmother's maiden name. We aren't supposed to use unknown for a last name. Now it's really starting to get confusing.  like I said before that's the end of that.

topic closed unless somebody higher up wants to help me

---

okay okay just one more comment. I believe the biological father should be entered as the father.

why can't we add another field where we can enter non-biological parents and kids so that we can be linked directly with their Wiki IDs

---

Doesn't look like flagging is working the way you intended although it surprises me. Flagging is typically used to flag an offensive message. At least that's how I've seen it used here.

As for Unknown as a last name, it's perfectly acceptable when we do not know the last name at birth of the person. This is discussed on the Help pages; not sure where you saw we shouldn't use it. Is it ideal? No  but that's our job as genealogists-- solve those mysteries!

If you have the birth certificate and no father was named, only the mother, then yes, use her surname as the child's last name at birth unless the certificate explicitly states another last name for the child.

---

Didn't fully read above. The birth certificate you have where his last name is that of his adoptive father sounds like a modified certificate. Do you see any clue on it that indicates it was made some time after the actual birth? I believe I've read that some states-- if not all --do allow the recreation of birth certificates post adoption. It would be interesting to see if there's a way to track down the original birth certificate or if those are destroyed. Perhaps someone with more experience researching adoptees could enlighten us.