Mothers of male-line great grandsons

Dora has asked us to do some additional work on our families. This is in preparation for the GREAT GRANDCHILDREN sample. It is important to know information about both the father and mother. The health of the mother impacts the health of the child.

This ONLY applies if there is a great grandson through the male line (whether living or not). Dora wants us to get birth and death information for the mothers of the great grandsons. To do this, you will:

      • Check your tree to see if there are great grandsons descended through the son and grandson of the soldier.
            o Noelle does this by keeping the soldier’s surname in mind. If the great grandchild is male and has the same last name as the soldier, then you know you have a great grandson through the male line.

      • If the answer is yes, you will add the wife of the grandson to the grid (that is the mother of the great grandson).

      • You will then create a death screen for that mother.
            o Add her name and gender.
            o If you find them in the hints, add the birth and death information to the screen.

      • DO NOT spend very much time doing this.

Please start doing this today (that would be yesterday, 10/31/2019 when I sent you the original email). Note on your log which RecId you’re working on, so that I know where we started searching for moms of great grandsons. You might say something like (on the soldier line) “began great grandson moms 10/31/2019.”

There is no need to add these moms to the input log.

Adding a 2nd parent

Last night we updated the VCC screens. You've already seen changes to the Update Relations page. Now there are also changes to the Create New Member window. If you don't see the changes when you log in to the VCC screens today, please refresh your browser.

Beginning today (November 21), please use these features for ALL the veterans' children and grandchildren. Please make sure this has been completed when you are doing your checks.

The reason for these changes is that we want to link the veteran's children, and grandchildren to BOTH of their parents. Sometimes, the veteran or his children will have multiple spouses; these new features allow us to assign the correct parents to each child.

We have added a new feature to the Create New Member Window (that you access using the Add New Member button). There is a new drop-down box called, "2nd Parent ID." Whereas previously we could only record a single parent, now we will be able to link a child to both of her/his parents.

We have added a new feature to the Update Relations Page.  There is a new column called "2ndParent."  This feature is the same as the 2nd Parent ID in the Create New Member Window. You will use it when people have already been added to the Grid, and you need to update the relationship information.

Here is a table showing how you assign Relation Codes and IDs:

	Relation/Rel Code	Relation ID	2nd Parent Id/2ndParent
Veteran	Veteran	00	blank
Veteran's Parents	Parent	00	blank
Veteran's Siblings	Sibling	00	blank
Veteran's Children	Child	00	ID of child's mother
Child's mother unknown	Child	00	UN
Veteran's Grandchildren
Both parent's known	Child	ID veteran's child	ID child's other parent
One parent known	Child	ID of known parent	UN
No parent's known	Grand	00	blank
Step Children	Child	ID of biological parent	blank
Other people on Grid	Follow current rules	Follow current rules	blank

 In the example below, George Vandercook, PID 10, is the child of the veteran 00 and Phillipina Miller PID 09.  Gracie and Reuben are also children of the veteran and Phillippina.  

Nellie Vandercook (PID 15) is the child of the veteran and his second wife Hester Vandercook (PID13).  If you do not know the mother of the child, select UN.   

The vet's son George (10) marries Elizabeth (17).  Children from this couple, Audrey (18) and Lyman (19), are marked as children of George (10) in the first column and of Elizabeth (17) in the second column.   George, as the son of the vet, is marked as the parent in the first column. 

The vet's daughter Nellie (15) marries Perry Davenport (22).  Their child Ruth (23)  is marked as child of Nellie in the first column and Perry in the second column.  Nellie is listed as the 1st parent because she is the daughter of the vet.

Note:  Lynn (21) is the great grandchild of the veteran, so I did not put her 2nd Parent in even though we know her mother is Helen (20), the spouse of Lyman (the vet's grandson).  We only need to mark 2nd parent for children and grandchildren. If you mark 2nd Parent for a great grandchild, there is no need for checkers to make note it.

It is so important that you assign children and grandchildren two parents, that when you have finished all the work for this veteran and hit Complete, an Alert window will appear that says, "Have you assigned both parents for all the children and grandchildren of the veteran?" Hit OK to acknowledge the message. If you forgot to assign parents, please do so immediately.

Please read this post TWICE. Email to let me know you've read it.

Identifying mothers in Update Relations - NEVER MIND! - WE WILL DO THIS LATER

Tonight we will be changing the Update Relations Page. If you don't see the changes when you log in to the VCC screens tomorrow, please refresh your browser. Here are Sandy's instructions for using the new feature. Beginning tomorrow, please use this feature for ALL the soldiers' children. Please make sure this has been completed when you are doing your checks.


We have added a new feature to the Update Relations Page.  We want to connect the children of the veteran with their correct mother (i.e., the right spouse of the vet).  There will be a new column now called "My Mother."  Going forward, for each child of the veteran, please enter the mother's PersonID in the appropriate row under My Mother.  In the example below, George Vandercook, PID 10, is the child of the veteran 00 and Phillipina Miller PID 09.  Gracie and Reuben are also children of the veteran and Phillippina.   Nellie Vandercook (PID 15) is the child of the veteran and his second wife Hester Vandercook (PID13).  If you do not know the mother of the child, please leave the field blank.  

At the present time, you can only enter this information after the person has been added to the grid.  You can then go in to the update relations page and make the appropriate selection for the mother.  In time, we will add the feature to the "Add a New Member Tab." 

For step children of the veteran, fill out the relations page as you have always done, making the step a child of the mother under the RelationID column and leaving the MyMother column blank.

Please contact Sandy if you have any questions.

Mother-child relationships

This is just a reminder that you should always make sure the mother-child relationships on your family trees are correct. When Chris creates the GEDCOM files that you use for your trees, he has no way to put the correct child with the correct mother. We would like to add this information as a variable in our data. Chris will be going back to the trees to extract it.

It's really important that you take the time to make sure all the children are connected to the correct mothers on your family trees.