Dear All, On my website (see below) I use a form of indented narrative to show couples and their children. As most of my ancestors behaved themselves, or at least got married, this form of presentation is neat and I hope fairly obvious. A problem arises when a couple got married, produced children BUT one of them had an illegitimate child from a previous relationship. For example Jane KNIGHT (1851-1935) had a daughter, Alice Jane KNIGHT (1872-1962) by a Frederick ONGLEY. Jane went on to marry Alfred COX (1851-1914) and have a further child, Alfred John COX (1885-1954). Alice Jane KNIGHT went on to marry William CLAYSON but fortunately they had no children. How is this normally shown using indented narrative? What I have done is on my website - follow KNIGHT of Worth, Sussex Charlwood, Surrey. Hoping for the informed replies such requests as this receive on the SOG List! Regards, Peter Cox Sussex ancestors at http://www.sussexancestors.co.uk AUSTEN, BARTRUP, BUNN, CHATFIELD, COX, EEDE, ELLIS, HEMSLEY, KNIGHT, LANGRIDGE, WEST

I've looked at http://www.beeptwo.com/familyhistory/knightcov.html The indentation is not the problem, just the illegitimacy. It is not unknown for ancestors to have illegitimate children by a series of partners, and I'd have thought the way to deal with it, in your format, would be to treat them as if they were regularly married, i.e. (1) Jane (1851 - 1935) (1) had a child(/children) by Frederick ONGLEY (18xx-18xx) (2) married Alfred COX (1851 - 1914) on dd Mmm 18xx. (1) Alice Jane KNIGHT (1872 - 1962) = William CLAYSON (1870 - 1945) (2) Alfred John COX (1885 - 1954) = Annie Elizabeth WEST (1882 - 1961) Alfred John William COX = Irene FITT Hector Davie

Peter COX wrote: > Hoping for the informed replies such requests as this receive on the SOG > List! I agree with Hector, at least in essence. The problem is that FH recording is still hooked on recording family groups as husband-wife-child whereas the truth is, now as ever, actually just father-mother-child. Although most programs (and other recording systems) use the term 'marriage' it should really be treated as simply 'child producing relationship'. Your Jane needs to be shown with a (1) and a (2) even though the first was not a marriage (in the legal sense). Whether, for (1), you use '=' or some other symbol is a different debate! HNY, Malcolm.