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Article Updated January 12, 2005 Family Tree Maker Tips, Hints & FAQs: By: Rick Roberts, Biography & Archived Articles
Recording Same Sex Relationships in FTM
We frequently receive questions on our help line and via email, about recording same sex relationships in the popular software program, Family Tree Maker. I share this response to a recent reader's email inquiry:
Is there anyway to show same sex relationships in the family tree?????? I have used "private" in the description of the relationship, but in the genealogy printout it shows shows the same sex (male) partner as a female "spouse" any suggestions Thanks Anon. I've tested Family Tree Maker using the descriptive of "Partners" as opposed to "Married" or "Private" with good success. (That descriptive can be changed using the drop down menu on the right hand side of the location provided to record a "Marriage in early version sof FTM. It's in the marriage FACTS page in version 2005 and newer) If you specify "Partners" rather than "Married" the headings in the program change to "Partner", as do the titles in printouts of reports. Even the register report changes the way it lays out the narrative to accomodate the difference. Also, the fields where you would record a marriage, are re-named "Meeting Date" and Meeting Location". "Meeting" is probably not the best date of record for this field, however when a same sex relationship advances to a point of exclusive commitment, that date could easily be recorded in the "Facts" page, with a date, location and source, under whatever descriptive term that you prefer. We tested different reports and found that the "Married" / "Partners" field toggles properly throughout most of the software however there is an apparent problem with the Family Group Sheet which identifies the same sex partner as a "spouse". The easiest solution would be for FTM to enable the software to toggle the the term "spouse" to "partner", when same sex relationships are recorded. I suspect that this is an oversight and that we will see it corrected in an upcoming version of Family Tree Maker. I suggest that you use the "partner" definition and count on the software catching up with social realities in the future. By using the same criteria when recording all same sex relationships, and then more clearly defining those relationships in the "notes" and "facts" section, you will achieve the best result available from Family Tree Maker at this time. Hope this helps :) Rick Roberts
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