Is it Appropriate or Distasteful to ADD Aborted Children to a Family Tree? [closed]

–6 votes
997 views

Is it Appropriate or Distasteful to ADD Aborted Children to Family Tree?

I know HOW to ADD a stillborn (stillbirth), miscarriage, and/or infant death...

Under Name Fields in the Styles and Standards section of WikiTree Help (http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Name_Fields#Special_rules_for_required_fields):

"If an infant died before he or she could be named, use Unnamed Infant. Do not use Infant Boy, Baby Girl, etc. There is a gender field for this."

Additionally, you can enter a statement with more information in the Biography - i.e. "This male child was stillborn." or "This child was was a miscarriage.", but what if the child was an abortion?

Has anyone added an aborted child to their Family Tree? AND if YES, how did you handle it so it isn't offensive?

 

closed with the note: Everyone seems to be in agreement on this issue.
in WikiTree Tech by DJ Murphy G2G1 (1.7k points)
closed by Liander Lavoie
There is a time and a place for everything but this is neither the time or the place for this

4 Answers

+28 votes
 
Best answer
Totally innapropriate. I believe this will only cause pain or anger among any family members.  What would be the point of adding this information? It's just something I would avoid. If the invidual is living then I don't believe anyone should be posting the information.
by Michelle Hartley G2G6 Pilot (166k points)
selected by Ruth L.
I agree with Michelle. Definitely inappropriate. Stillborns make more sense to list. They are actually born. Abortions and miscarriages are a different story.
Total agreement, Lianne.
If it is needed this is my agreement that this entry has no place in building the world tree.
I would tend to agree. I have seen them listed on some trees before, and was quite frankly SHOCKED to see it. I was wondering how others felt.
These are fighting topics and just don't think they have any business being included or discussed too much. I think the only person to make that decision to post something this sensitive would be the individual themself no one else. It's an invasion of privacy in my opinion.
I agree with you Wendy!
That information may not be known to everyone involved.  How horrible it would be to look up your family tree and see aborted children on it.
Dj if you see them listed on wikitree please let us know.
So to be clear, report these to you Michelle?

It doesn't need to be me. A sys/op can handle this as well.

There is no place for profiles of this nature on WikiTree.

I'm sure Eowyn or Abby will comment on this at some point.smiley

+15 votes
While I can certainly appreciate a person's individual desire to memorialize any member of their family, WikiTree is building a worldwide, collaborative family tree and are not adequately set up to include individuals who did not actually reach a birth date.  Private information such as that is best kept much more personally, and not shared on an Internet website.  It is not appropriate to include on WikiTree.
by Tami Mize G2G6 Mach 4 (41.9k points)
+1 vote
I have to say I dont believe any earlier then Still born is appropiate and truthfully they dont even fit in with the guidelines. They dont have a birth date or even a truelly defined death date nor location. They dont even usually have an official name
by Matt Pryber G2G6 Mach 5 (52.4k points)
+7 votes

I have no desire to stumble into a moral or religious discussion, but would like to raise one point that might possibly be relevant. As most members know, in the U.S. Census in 1900 and 1910, married women were asked to report how many children they were mother of and how many were still living. I have found more than a few of these records that aren't consistent with other data about the family -- for example, a woman reported that she was mother of 8 children, 6 living, and I have profiled the six, but found no record of the other two. I suspect that they may represent miscarriages or stillbirths, but I have no data to corroborate that. And so I just enter a comment on the mother's biography saying that she reported eight children, but I have found no records for two of them.

 

The point I'm working my way to is this: in a situation where a medical or family record, or some other record, might exist that could be found by a future genealogist, and that could create uncertainty or confusion about the size of a family, I think it would be OK to include a brief clarification or explanatory statement in the mother's profile, if you have personal knowledge of it. It might not be necessary to provide all the details, and I certainly wouldn't create a profile for the unborn. But let's face it, many of our medical records are now online, and I don't think we really know how well protected they are.

by Dennis Barton G2G6 Pilot (549k points)

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