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But we do have adoption in our family. I have researched the adoptive ancestors because the grandparents were known to the adoptee & he was intersted in having more facts to go with the old remembered stories. And our last name is the adopted family name so it was important to us to know the origins of our name.
I think the reason it matters is because as genealogists, we (of all people) should respect the importance of accuracy and truthfulness for the researchers of the future.
One day we will all be dead and the work we leave behind should be as truthful and accurate as we can possibly make it.
But if the work isn't accessible to future generations then what does it matter? All I'm saying is, if it's a private tree that only the tree owner can access, it's not spreading any false information, and it's no one else's business.
I'll admit to not having much knowledge of, or interest in, genealogy. I stumbled upon this thread because of the adoption angle.
In the eyes of the law, when someone is adopted into a family, they become a full-fledged legal member of that family. Thus, it seems to me, it would be appropriate to trace the family line through the legal definition of that family, even if the blood line were to take a detour.
My children are adopted. If I were going to create a family tree, I would show them as my children; I would show myself and my wife as their parents; I would show our parents as their grandparents; etc. Their family tree goes back through the generations of my ancestors and my wife's ancestors, because we are their parents -- legally and emotionally, even if not biologically.
Like I said, though, I don't know much about genealogy. If it's important to show blood lineage, then I suppose that's what you would do.
Firstly if adoptee is still living then they will be private and no one but the tree owner and anyone they give permission to can even see those details so I really don't see how it would effect anyone. Secondly, in an ancestry.com tree, even marking a relationship as adopted instead of biological is only really noticeable if you click on "edit Relationships", which only people with editing abilities for that tree can do. I think the only other place it's denoted is in family view with a subtle dotted line instead of solid. And that's assuming the adoptee is deceased and it's even visible to anyone but the tree owner. So I just don't see how this effects anyone but the tree owner and perhaps their immediate family and therefore I don't see how it's anyone else's business.
I do not have a tree at Ancestry.com. I use RootsMagic, which allows you to include an adoption in the facts for any individual, just as you do baptisms and immigration and military service. I do not see the reasoning behind hiding an adoption. Certainly if the person generating the tree knows about an adoption earlier in his family then most probably other family members do, too.
As chadgates said, why deliberately mislead others who may see the tree? That just sets up folks in the tree who do get DNA tested for a big surprise.
Does anyone these days still choose not to tell adopted children that they were adopted?
Are you really suggesting that an adoptee should be in a tree as the natural child of a couple rather than an adopted child?
But if the work isn't accessible to future generations then what does it matter? All I'm saying is, if it's a private tree that only the tree owner can access, it's not spreading any false information, and it's no one else's business.
I agree. But it must be made perfectly clear that is IF AND ONLY IF it is a personal private tree that will never be seen by anyone else outside of family.
I'll admit to not having much knowledge of, or interest in, genealogy. I stumbled upon this thread because of the adoption angle.
In the eyes of the law, when someone is adopted into a family, they become a full-fledged legal member of that family. Thus, it seems to me, it would be appropriate to trace the family line through the legal definition of that family, even if the blood line were to take a detour.
My children are adopted. If I were going to create a family tree, I would show them as my children; I would show myself and my wife as their parents; I would show our parents as their grandparents; etc. Their family tree goes back through the generations of my ancestors and my wife's ancestors, because we are their parents -- legally and emotionally, even if not biologically.
Like I said, though, I don't know much about genealogy. If it's important to show blood lineage, then I suppose that's what you would do.
What we're debating is that most family tree software allows you to chose a relationship type with your children. So they will be listed as your children no matter what, I don't think anyone is saying adopted children shouldn't be listed at all - but you have the option to choose whether to mark them as an adopted child or biological child (among other options like step, foster, guardian, and unknown, etc). The system is normally set up to assume by default that a child is biological so you'd have to go into the settings and deliberately change them to adopted. We are debating the relevance of doing so, if no one else has access to the tree/that part of the tree.
But if the work isn't accessible to future generations then what does it matter? All I'm saying is, if it's a private tree that only the tree owner can access, it's not spreading any false information, and it's no one else's business.
There are a lot more dead people in my tree than when I started it years ago.
People change their minds. What is private now may be public later.
The maker of the tree may give family permission to see the tree, they copy it, pass it along, and then it spreads. Another starts a public tree, uses the wrong information, others see it, etc.
I don't understand why you are arguing about this. In genealogy only the truth. In your PC world you can call steps relatives and a first cousin once removed "aunt" because they are older but that has no place in genealogy.
There are a lot more dead people in my tree than when I started it years ago.
People change their minds. What is private now may be public later.
The maker of the tree may give family permission to see the tree, they copy it, pass it along, and then it spreads. Another starts a public tree, uses the wrong information, others see it, etc.
I don't understand why you are arguing about this. In genealogy only the truth. In your PC world you can call steps relatives and a first cousin once removed "aunt" because they are older but that has no place in genealogy.
What are you talking about? No one mentioned step relatives or calling a first cousin once removed an aunt. I'm not arguing anything, just saying that what people do with their own private tree is no one else's business because it impacts no one else. Not sure what on earth that has to do with political correctness.
As an adoptee, back in the pre-internet days, before I knew who my biological parents were, my uncle was the family genealogist. One year he collected photos from all the cousins, nieces and nephews from the family and created a "family tree poster" that was an image of a tree with branches, each branch with photos and names hanging from it of the different families that descended from the same ancestors. He mailed a copy out to every family. He made the branch with me and my adopted siblings a dotted line, and put the word "adopted" after our names. My parents were furious with him and immediately took a marker and made it a solid line.
But after growing up, I realized the truth that many adoptees discover, that we really weren't considered equal to biological kin by many members of the extended family. This was driven home to me once after talking to one of my aunts on the phone a few years ago. I felt she always treated us adopted nieces and nephews like family. But after the end of the conversation I heard her talking to someone in the room with her. She thought she had hung up the phone apparently. And she said "That was my sister's adopted son..." So foremost in her mind, I was "adopted", even after 50 years!
I still say it is important for me, now that I have knowledge of who my biological parents were, even though I never had a relationship with them growing up, to have a family tree for my biological ancestors, and another one for my adoptive parents' ancestors. But I have to admit I have more interest now in my biological ancestors, because they are "mine" in a way that my adoptive parents' ancestors are not. And that my biological ancestry had been hidden from me for so long makes me all the more eager to learn about it and imagine what my genetic ancestors were like. I do communicate with relatives I find through Ancestry who are related both biologically and through my adoptive family. I feel lucky to have two identities to embrace.
Just do not do that in such a way that others who see your information will be led to believe your adoptive family are blood relations, unless they are, such as adoptions by blood relatives of a birth parent.
Anyone's family tree could have people who were adopted or otherwise mixed up in it. There might be a child borne by a sister but raised by a brother and subsequently thought to be their child, when it was a well-kept family secret. At any rate, my part of the tree will simply say I was the daughter of so-and-so.
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