WeRelate:Suggestions/Add ReMarriage as a Fact/Event to Family Page

Divorce and remarriage by the same couple is apparently more common than one might expect. There is currently no way to add remarriage to a Family Page, which means that people tend to add a duplicate Family Page for the second marriage. Creating a duplicate Family Page really isn't logical either in terms of the lived experience (it is the same family), nor is the computer capable of understanding that it is the same family. The easiest solution should be to just add "Remarriage" as another Fact or Event to the Family Page.

I don't think events are arbitrary, instead based on GEDCOM specification, which doesn't seem to support remarriage. Not sure of the implications of this interrelationship.

Alternate, not ideal but communicative, would be to add an Alt marriage, and add "Remarriage" to the description file. One advantage of duplicate family pages might be separating children (i.e., add "Remarriage" to description on second page). --Jrich 15:24, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Another reason why duplicate pages might still be necessary is the offhand case that the remarriage is separated from the original by another marriage to a different person. --Jrich 15:46, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the implications are for GedCom, but the as for the rest, people who are dealing with a remarriage in their families don't appear to think in the rather convoluted concept of Alt marriage, etc. Nor do I see a problem with a different marriage intervening -- for which a different page is created -- all of which would show up in the time line.

This sounds like a reasonable approach. I've seen lots of pages that use Alt Marriage, which I find problematic, and I usually create 2 family pages instead. But I would be willing to switch to this approach. A few notes:

• GEDCOM upload would not support this - it would be one of those things that you change after an upload to make the data more clear. Not a big problem in my view.
• GEDCOM download would have to be changed to make this an "Other" event with description of "remarriage" just like in the examples shown below.
• I like the term "remarriage" but would it be used incorrectly? We often say that someone remarried after a divorce or the death of a spouse, without meaning this situation. Is there a better term (I can't think of one at the moment)?
• Sorting on the person page kind of works. I say "kind of" because the new event sorting logic sorts by family page when dates are equivalent. This is deliberate, to keep events for the same marriage together when the dates are equivalent. The effect in this case is that when the dates are equivalent, the remarriage shows up before the divorce (see example 1) - which is not logical. If we change the date on the divorce to the previous year (see example 2), the events sort in the logical order. (If there was a second family page for the remarriage, the events would sort in the correct order even when the dates are equivalent.) I'm willing to live with this minor issue - if people don't like the sorting and don't have exact information, they can use an estimated year with more detail in the references, as I did in this case.

Example 1 - equivalent dates

Example 2 - dates are not equivalent

--DataAnalyst 17:05, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Adding this note from Goldenoldie on Gayel's Talk page:

What a good idea! So often we miss the entry for the second marriage when it's listed after the children of the first marriage on the list on the right. /cheers, --Goldenoldie 15:21, 20 November 2020 (UTC)