Genealogy and LGBTIQ Ancestors

[Dana_H]

I have been researching my family genealogy as a hobby. Yesterday, a thought occurred to me: How would one record a transitioned relative? On paper, the situation could be explained on the person's family record sheet, but what about genealogy software? Some packages do "sanity checking" on entries so if you had a relative who was assigned male at birth, married a woman, fathered children, then got divorced, transitioned, and married a man who already had children of his own, the software would prevent you from assigning the second spouse.

It's largely a hypothetical question for me since I have no children and don't expect to have any, nor do I have any transsexual relatives... to my knowledge. I just got to thinking about it and realized most genealogy software makes assumptions that are not entirely compatible with LGBTIQ individuals.

For my own record, I  think it will suffice to list myself according to my birth certificate and other documents, then create a Name Change event supported by the appropriate civil filing and note the change of gender identity in the same note.

[Jamie D]

That is a great question.  And now with more states allowing same-sex marriage, I can see more software turmoil.

I do recall that LDS temples had a genealogy library, and you could find records of ancestor polygamists.

[DeniseGrace]

That really is a good question. I hadn't thought of the issue.

If you manually enter a "partner" at least on the site I have the "tree" built, gives you 3 options Male Female Unknown.

You could enter the explanation in notes or biography, but you're right the accuracy checker will keep prompting to correct....



DeniseGrace

[Kylo]

I'm sure the tech will come to accommodate things like this in the near future.

[Dena]

I am on Ancestry.com but already had 3 generations back. That is sufficient to get past the records that are withheld and into records that everybody else have provided. Some of my branches date back to the 1400's without paying for access to out of the country records. There will be plenty of time to deal with the LGBT issue because you can't access living peoples records or census records less that 70 years old.