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Non-Traditional Family Trees: Step Families on Ancestry

Mary Koeven
Step Family - The Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch, a well-known step family.

Non-traditional family trees are not uncommon. Although many of us wish for a traditional family, divorce, death, out-of-wedlock births and other circumstances happen to many families. No matter how you feel about what happened or how you feel about the people involved in these events, they belong in your family tree. Your step family genealogy should be recorded to accurately tell your family’s story.

In this series, you will learn how to record these complex family situations clearly in your family tree. In this post, you will learn about recording step family genealogy and divorce events in your Ancestry.com Tree.

The basic concepts for recording non-traditional family trees are the same in most genealogy programs. In this series of blog posts, you will see examples using my favorite programs: FamilySearch and Ancestry, and tips on using these features in other software. Again, most genealogy software has similar features to the ones I will be demonstrating, although the terminology may be different.

Entering information about step family genealogy usually involves the following:

  1. Adding all the spouses/parents to the tree.
  2. Creating marriage events for each couple.
  3. Recording when and where the divorce events occurred for each marriage involved, and/or recording death events for each spouse that has died.
  4. Adding each child to each set of parents that belongs to them.
  5. Indicating which child-parent relationships are biological and which are step relationships.

Adding Multiple Spouses

Here is the information we need to record for our example:

Jane Doe married John Smith in 1978. They had a son, Bobby Smith. In 1980, they divorced. In 1982, Jane Doe married Walter Longbottom and Bobby Smith became Walter’s stepson.

The first step is to record the two spouses and two marriage events for Jane Doe. This is fairly straightforward. I can’t think of a single genealogy software that won’t let you add more than one spouse to an individual. You just have to find the right button.

On Ancestry, to add a spouse, click on the “Add Family” button on the profile page for the individual:

Adding marriage events

To add a marriage event in Ancestry, click the “Add” button where it shows a list of facts:

You will see a list of fact types to choose from. Select “Marriage.” Then fill in the information and select which spouse to attach this marriage to. You can also click on “Change Spouse” and add a new spouse from there.

Recording Divorce Events

Now we need to record a divorce event for the marriage between Jane Doe and John Smith.

In Ancestry, select “Add fact” just like you did with the marriage event, and scroll down and select the divorce event.

Notice that there is a fact called “Divorce” and another called “Divorce filed.” Divorces can be complicated, and oftentimes you need to record multiple dates to tell the whole story. You can enter when the divorce was filed and when the divorce was finalized as two separate facts. If you scroll down the list, you will see another fact called “Separation.” This is useful for recording when a couple stopped living together. Recording such events are useful for understanding the timeline of a family’s life. Many divorces may not be finalized for a year or more after a separation occurs. Sometimes a separation happens but a divorce is never officially done. You need to know your family’s history. If a marriage ended in death and not divorce, add the relevant information there as well by adding a death fact.

Adding Children to Families

Next you need to add all of the children who belong to each of the married couples you just entered. If a child grew up in multiple families, add the same child to each set of parents. This means adding the child to both the birth family and the step family or step families.

In Ancestry, click on “Add Family” and select “Child:”

Then fill in the information about the child. You can select which set of parents you wish to attach the child to:

To add additional parents to the child, go to the child’s profile. Then find the button on the top right corner of the screen that says “edit.” Click on “Edit Relationships.”

Click “Add Alternate Father” or “Add Alternate Mother.” If the father or mother is already in your tree, you can start typing the name, then click on it when it shows up.

Defining Relationships: Ancestry

One more thing to do: define the relationships between the children and their parents. A child may be biologically related to one father or mother, but raised by another.

In Ancestry’s “Edit Relationships” window, you can define how a child is related to each parent. You can also choose which parents are preferred. In this example, John Smith is the preferred father, so he will show up in the pedigree chart as Bobby’s father. Click “Set as preferred” to select Walter Longbottom as the preferred father instead.

Again, you should be able to do this in most other programs. Some of them have different relationship terms than others. Pick the one that best explains the family’s situation, and add explanatory notes if needed.

I hope this helps you better keep track of your step family genealogy. See my FamilySearch tutorial here. Leave a comment if you have any questions.

More tutorials (coming soon) for non-traditional family trees:

For more tips and resources for talking to your children about your non-traditional family tree, see this excellent post by Emily Kowalski Schroeder on Growing Little Leaves: Family Trees for EVERY Family

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