Identifying Step-Ancestors Wrongly

[B Jansen]

Many of my ancestors had more than one spouse. When I "identify" relatives with me as the source person, everything seems to work fine with one exception: my step-ancestors (the other spouses of my ancestors) are listed as my grandparents, et al. But I'm not related to them by blood in any way--they aren't my (gggg...)grandparents at all.

[Derrick]

Re: Identifying Step-Ancestors Wrongly

I'm not sure this is the answer, but in the "Help" manual under Using Sidebars & Lists > Relatives & Relationships > What Relatives are Identified, it says this:
_____
Reunion identifies relatives by blood and by marriage to a source person.
A relative by blood includes a lineal, collateral, or half relative — someone related by birth.
A relative by marriage includes spouses, half-relatives, step-children, in-laws, and spouses of uncles or aunts.

Let's take a closer look at the people for whom relationships are identified...

All spouses of the starting person's siblings, descendants, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews - aka the "in-laws." For example:
spouse of daughter - aka son in-law
spouse of uncle - aka non-blood aunt
etc.

All spouses of direct-line ancestors of the starting person are identified. This would be the step families. For example...
step mother - aka spouse of father
step grandfather - aka spouse of grandmother
etc.

All relatives for the starting person's spouses are calculated. This would be in-laws and step-families depending on the relationship. For example...
step son - aka son of spouse
step granddaughter - aka granddaughter of spouse
father of spouse - aka father in-law
sister of spouse - aka sister in-law
spouse of aunt of spouse - aka spouse of sister of mother in-law
etc.
____

You can change this; see under "Settings for the Relatives Sidebar" on the same Help page.

[B Jansen]

Re: Identifying Step-Ancestors Wrongly

Thanks Derek,

But that doesn't change my ability to correct Reunion for applying the WRONG relationship to another spouse of a grandparent.

As you pointed out, it will list in-law relatives "spouse of cousin" et al. correctly, but it misidentifies non-blood grandparents as biological ones.

[Mark]

Re: Identifying Step-Ancestors Wrongly

Hi Bradley,

Please try clearing the relationships fields and then re-identifying relationships.

To do that, open the Relatives sidebar and click the Change button at the top, then click "Clear Relationship Fields". Finally, drag the person you want to be the source for relationships into the Relatives sidebar.

If the entries in question are still assigned incorrect relationships, then it is possible your Family File has some minor linking issues. I'd recommend sending the Family File to us so that we can check it for errors and fix any that we find. If you do send the file, please don't make any changes to it until we return a fixed file to you.

I hope that helps,

[B Jansen]

Re: Identifying Step-Ancestors Wrongly

Thanks, Mark. Downloading the software update now, then out tonight, so it'll be tomorrow.

I think my beef is that most of the other "relatives" say "spouse of relative" if they aren't a blood relative, but the step-grandparents just say "grandfather/mother" which gets confusing.

[B Jansen]

Re: Identifying Step-Ancestors Wrongly

Clearing the relationship fields and re-identifying the relatives did the trick, thanks!

And yes, now they read now, e.g., "Step 9G Grandmother"