I’m creating a huge family tree that I will print out poster size for an upcoming family reunion. About 40-50 people will attend, and many won’t know each other. The family tree is also available on an online genealology site.
Here’s the sticky area:
A cousin and his wife raised the wife’s niece from age 11-18. They provided a loving home, guided her, took her on all their travels, and paid out of pocket for her private college, master’s degree, and law school. They had legal guardianship but did not adopt her. The niece’s parents are alive, but the mom was in and out of jail, and the dad – who was remarried and lived a comfortable upper middle class life – did not want her.
So: Do we include the niece on the tree as my cousin and his wife’s daughter?
Here are the considerations:
They did not adopt her.
Her parents are both alive, and her mom was NOT happy that my cousin and his wife (who is the mom’s sister) took her under their wings.
My cousin and his wife intentionally have no (other) children. They chose not to have children, but took in the niece because of her situation.
The niece is related to my cousin’s wife, so she would not otherwise be elsewhere in our family tree.
But: My cousin’s mother refers to the niece as her grand-daughter, and my cousin refers to her as his daughter.
Are you labeling everyone as “son”, “daughter”, etc??? (so gender specific) Could she be “attached” to cousin and his wife but not labeled “daughter” - just her name?
Can you ask cousin/wife for their opinion on how they would like her represented? Or the niece? Sounds like she is an adult now.
She is 28. This particular online chart only has options to add daughter or son. But that’s an interesting thought. I can see if there’s a way to attach her to them without labeling her a daughter or son.
I can ask my cousin. I have no relationship with the niece, so I wouldn’t ask her directly. I know that my cousin will say to include her as his daughter. Maybe there’s a way to designate it as an adoption so as not to confuse future family researchers using DNA.
I’m also a little worried about the feelings of the niece’s mother, who never was in favor of her daughter moving in with my cousin and wife.
Uh, why are you caring about the feelings of niece’s mother… she will not be there correct? And sorry, but if she was not able to take care of her child, then IMHO she doesn’t get an opinion going forward.
Actions speak louder than blood; an axiom to remember for many cases.
I’d ask only the 3 people that have a say, cousin+wife and niece.
The cousin’s sister-in-law is not attending the reunion, correct?
I would hope that the mother is not attending. It’s not like it’s the mother’s family reunion. It yours. You are free to do and label whatever and however you want to label your family.
Your cousin brought this child, now adult, into his home and provided a safe and loving environment with a home, food, clothing, financial and emotional support, and raised this child as part of a village.
When Mom was in and out of jail, did she have feelings for her child and who would take care of the child? I’m all for rehabilitation but at some point, when you have a child, it can’t be just about you.
Your cousin didn’t adopt the mother, nor the child but did recognize that the child might want to keep her own name and heritage. I see nothing wrong with including the daughter in the tree and listing as family.
The niece is 28. I would ask her. Then I would clear it with the cousin. I think that I would ask whether it would be okay to put her in both places. At a minimum, the software should allow this since the software does not know whether both families had a daughter at the same time and gave her the same name (it has happened in other families, at least within a few months).
By the way, are you happy with the software that you are using to print out the poster? If so, can you send me a pointer or post it here? I have put together a family tree just using very ad hoc methods that do not result in anything that looks all that pretty.
Is there a way to label the box “ward” rather than “son”/“daughter”? To solidify the relationship as a guardian/ward, rather than parent/child. Seems like it would be a relationship that might be more common in the past, but still applies here.
Another vote to ask the person related to you.
I’d worry less about future generations and more about the feelings here/now. Your relatives did a great thing.
While “ward” may be a correct term, to me it doesn’t sound very warm and loving on a family tree. Especially if given as a gift more so than just a public record or something.
In the end it isn’t the “title” that matters but the gift of family they provided her - and so I hope you can somehow show that on this special family tree!
This is a very common situation among Jewish families (and I’m sure other ethnic/religious groups as well). There were SO many dislocated children after WW2 who were taken in by both close and distant relatives (family members in the US would write frantic telegrams to the Red Cross in Displaced Person’s camps in Europe- “if there any survivors of the Rosenbaum family of Berlin, the Rosenbaum’s of Chicago will sponsor them and give them a home”).
Every family tree I’ve ever seen with these situations has a straight line and an entry to denote the original biological parents, and a dotted line and an entry to denote the family where the child was raised. Nobody is confused by the dual entry, everyone understands that there is zero value judgement in denoting two sets of parents. Many of these documents have ended up in archives and museums (now that the “children” in these situations are now mostly deceased) and it is valuable to future generations to document both the reality (children raised by people who may have only been distantly related) and the historical lineage (families which in some cases were completely wiped out).
My own family tree (an elderly cousin who is self-trained) meticulously records any ancestors she was able to document and we are all so appreciative of the research that went into producing such a robust and complicated history.
To this I would ask, are you identifying all adopted children as adopted? If not, ask cousin, his wife and daughter how they would like to be represented.
I like blossom’s idea of straight and dotted line entries. Maybe that can be offered to cousin, et al.
So it’s one extra entry- the original biological parents- to properly document the young woman’s parentage. Many family trees have extraneous entries (ex-spouse’s, for example) in the interest of accuracy. Are you going to eliminate the birth mom’s of every single family family member just because there was a divorce? This seems silly. And the counter to the spirit of a family tree project!
