I use my BK database primarily in support of my one-name study -- the descendants of my 5th great-grandfather, Ambrose Remeli, So it is common for me to use a descendant report and also the ability to flag his descendants. I only recently noticed that the logic used in flagging descendants of an individual does NOT distinguish between a natural child and a step-child whereas in the descendant report the option exists to show "step" before the name of a stepchild. In my database of 80,753 individuals, 1332 have secondary parents. This has advantages as well as disadvantages. Many family historians view step-children as part of the family unit -- especially if the child was the result of an earlier marriage to the natural parent. In such a case, the child is brought up in the home of the parent and the step-parent and his/her history is very much part of that family. But "pure genealogists" would argue that the step-child has no DNA from the step-parent and should not be viewed as a descendant. Similarly for other types of non-natural parenthood (adoptive, foster, and other) Perhaps when flagging descendants, the utility could ask if the user wants all children or only natural children. Jim Ramaley Gettysburg, PA

This certainly a conundrum, Jim. I concur with your reasoning. There is another aspect, though, and you infer that without being specific. A descendant report is of SOMEONE, not of a FAMILY. A step parent, male or female will have a separate descendancy from that of the other spouse(s). Given that "'Genealogy" is a science, specifying offspring to its parents, "pure genealogists" as you tell, I concur. Subsequent or multiple partner relationships are more of Family History, Or deemed to be an ART (q.v. Science). In terms of depicting current & extended relationships over time, I find in the case of the descendant chart, as it is now, shows the offspring of multiple partners of the person whose descendancy or reported, however from a FAMILY perspective, another spouse coming to a marriage or family unit with a family of their own, is difficult to show. Sometimes 'the other family' is lost out of the report, or two (or more) reports are required. I have a case where three completely separate families come together to create the 4th. Well, even that is not true. F1 m. M1., > 2x girls: - - - F1 m. M2. > 3x boys; - - - F1 m. M3. > Grandfather M3 m. F2. > 3x boys; - -. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - M3 m. F1. > Grandfather A total of 2 women and 3 men. That is 2-daughters, 7-sons between them. I am trying to ascertain if the two families of 3x sons is just the same three fellows as there is only one set of birth registrations. ** ** *** Flagging is something else again. A flag tends to suggest a common criteria To effect multiple criteria appears counter-productive, or simply not sensible. Perhaps then there is a new criteria that says FAMILIES. In that case I would suggest the flag be applied to all children of all spouse / partners in a descendancy. The present chart shows 1,2 3, relationships, adding roman numerals or lower case latyin ,a,b,c, etc, could suffice to distinguish between the woman's family(s) and those of the man. I think your solution Jim, is succinct. Good one. Note how the family group sheets are also lineage associative, and multiple reports need to be created and cross-viewed to make sense of who is who. ** ** *** Consider the ANCESTOR chart that shows SIBLINGS of ancestors! What a wonderful chart! I just need another generation and printed on A3 paper.!!! My thought... Barry P. --==-- -----Original Message----- From: Jim Ramaley [mailto:james.ramaley@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, 13 September 2019 2:38 PM To: bk@rootsweb.com Subject: [BK] Flagging Descendants I use my BK database primarily in support of my one-name study -- the descendants of my 5th great-grandfather, Ambrose Remeli, So it is common for me to use a descendant report and also the ability to flag his descendants. I only recently noticed that the logic used in flagging descendants of an individual does NOT distinguish between a natural child and a step-child whereas in the descendant report the option exists to show "step" before the name of a stepchild. In my database of 80,753 individuals, 1332 have secondary parents. This has advantages as well as disadvantages. Many family historians view step-children as part of the family unit -- especially if the child was the result of an earlier marriage to the natural parent. In such a case, the child is brought up in the home of the parent and the step-parent and his/her history is very much part of that family. But "pure genealogists" would argue that the step-child has no DNA from the step-parent and should not be viewed as a descendant. Similarly for other types of non-natural parenthood (adoptive, foster, and other) Perhaps when flagging descendants, the utility could ask if the user wants all children or only natural children. Jim Ramaley Gettysburg, PA _______________________________________________ Remember - Use the Archives at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search _______________________________________________ Email preferences: http://bit.ly/rootswebpref Unsubscribe https://lists.rootsweb.com/postorius/lists/bk@rootsweb.com Privacy Statement: https://ancstry.me/2JWBOdY Terms and Conditions: https://ancstry.me/2HDBym9 Rootsweb Blog: http://rootsweb.blog RootsWeb is funded and supported by Ancestry.com and our loyal RootsWeb community