G2G: In a blended family can grandparents revert to the bloodline and not the parents of the new parent?

Question

This is breaking the rule "Do not ask about living people." However I am writing to see if there is a response to this theoretical question and I do not include any names.

There are a number of consequences when trying to establish blended families as part of a tree and in most cases these people are living. For example, in the case of my sons I prefer that their grandparents should be recorded as the parents of their birth mother, so that they can extend the line back that way, while for our family I prefer that my sons' mother be recorded as my partner, their step mother (not their birth mother). My sons have step brothers, the sons of my partner, who are equally important as blood family after living together for a number of years. Can this  blurring be achieved without those grandparents also appearing as the parents of my partner, the boys' step mother (which is obviously wrong)?

Answer 1

 

Hi Dominique.

 

The very short answer: No. Sorry. :-)

 

The longer answer ...

 

First, your question shows you already understand the basics of how WikiTree works regarding multiple marriages, etc. For those reading this question who don't:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Multiple_Marriages

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Multiple_Parents

 

As you recognize, you can enter either biological parents or step/adoptive parents as the mother and father for a person. The others can be linked in the bio/text section, but it's ones in the mother and father fields that will appear in the family tree.

 

Grandparents aren't recorded anywhere. Grandparents are, of course, the parents of the parents.

 

Siblings aren't recorded either. Siblings are other people who share one or both of the same parents.

 

Your profile, of course, can have your wife appear. The mother of your sons does not have to appear.

 

On your sons' profiles, their mother does need to appear if you want her parents to be their grandparents. However, this means their step-siblings won't appear unless they're your children. If they're just the children of your wife, they'll need to be linked from the bio/text section.

 

Chris

Comments

Thank you Chris.
Yes this poses the question about what is a family and is a tree able to contain that?
In this case I wish to create the family that exists now as the prime unit but that ends my sons ability to follow their bloodline grandparents on their mother's side. This is one simple part of our particular family which is even more complicated in its blended nature than a tree structure appears able to bear.
Can the tree bend further?
Dominique

---

The trouble with bending is that all of WikiTree's features, all of it's complexity, is based primarily on one simple assumption: that every person has one mother and one father. If we change that assumption, everything else breaks (or at least becomes much more complex to manage and grow).