Recording extended households

[Myles O]

Nuclear families are a particular, peculiar and short-lived mid-20th Century phenomenon - at least so it appears from my family tree - the story often revolves around households rather than a singular family.

There is the family view, and there are connections - is there any way to combine these into a household view?

[Myles O]

How do other people record complex blended households, or is this topic an anathema?

[Blaise A. Darveaux]

The only thing I can think of to do what I think you suggest is the ability for children in a family to have different last names than their parents. As for me I have cousins that have been married multiple time, have had children with each of them, then included children from spouse's previous marriages, all living together. But I don't record by household; I might go crazy if I did. I tease out the children's last names and who the biological parents are for all the children and record them as such in separate families. Sometimes it takes multiple emails/texts to get things straight.

[Myles O]

I think I may go crazy anyhow - actually that may have already happened, (how would I know?) - but I don't just mean children - my father's adopted mother's sister lived in her sister's household for much of her life, or my grandfather who lived his childhood in a household that included his father's apprentices (important enough that one became his father's second wife) - think of the thousands of people who lived as household servants in one capacity or another etc...

Meanwhile not only am I quietly going bonkers but I think it may be not only impossible to get anything straight, but also counter to reality.

But I do appreciate your response, Blaise, thank you.

In the meantime I guess I can record the connections and put something on the wish list.

[AlPrunty]

For me it's more about genetic relationships and adopted relationships. But using the child status you can add them to the household as children and tag them as servants, apprentices, even "family Pet" as it was in the default I would play with that feature a bit.

[Myles O]

Maybe I could change my own status to family pet. Regular food, exercise, tummy rubs - lots to be said for it.

You make me think of the 'head of household" and "relationship to head" that you get in census forms (at least in the UK)

Here again it would be great to enter the whole census information just once and have these facts (or events) added to the records of each person - in database terms I think I'd follow the census and model this as a Household with relationships to people.

I seem to be persuading myself to compose something for the wish list

[theKiwi]

Here again it would be great to enter the whole census information just once and have these facts (or events) added to the records of each person - in database terms I think I'd follow the census and model this as a Household with relationships to people.

You can do this now - create the Census event record that you want, and put a source with it.

Close the Edit person window

Reopen the Edit person window

Select the Census event you just create - select the whole line, not one field of it

Press Command c to copy that whole event with the Source

Close the Edit Person Window

Open the Edit person window for the next person in the census

Select where you want it to appear and then

Press Command V to paste that event and its source citation

Close the Edit Person window

Repeat as necessary

Roger

[Myles O]

I'll explore census event - it sounds interesting, though not quite the same thing - thanks