Adding grandchildren with unclear parentage

Question

Hey there!  Looking for some advice.  I often come across obituaries which are a goldmine of names and information.  However, one problem they almost always have is that they list by generation, not by family.  So they list the deceased's siblings together, then their kids, then the grandkids names, and then maybe a number for the great-grandkids.

I'm thrilled whenever I find one that actually lists the grandkids name, but as they are listed as a group and not with their parents, I am left to guess who on earth belongs to whom.  Sometimes you can Google the parents and find them on a "white pages" type site that lists "possible relatives" and you can find some of the grandkids listed there and figure out which parents they belong to.

However, in most cases, with living relatives it's impossible to sort this out without being able to directly contact them, which sometimes isn't possible.

So!  My work-around has been to randomly pick one of the children, and attach ALL the grandkids to them with a Bio note on each one explaining that they are the grandkids of so-and-so, but that I am unsure which parent they belong to, so I have included them all under this parent.

The question is, will this come back to bite me later?  If I find out who the parents in question are, is it going to be a nightmare to reassign the kids, or will I wind up having to delete them all and start from scratch?  I've only done this with three families so far, and I want to make sure I'm not shooting myself in the foot before I make it a regular habit.

Thanks for any advice!

Answer 1

Reassigning people usually involves deleting them from their original position and then re-entering their information elsewhere. This is often time consuming but necessary for an accurate tree.

Comments

Since I posted, I actually had the situation in question come up, where I discovered which parents the grandchildren belonged to, after assigning them to a "stand-in" parent.  Turns out it's actually very simple!  You just click Change or Delete, Change Parents, and then you can choose new parents from the tree.  Kapoof!  :)

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It's obviously ideal if you find out the parent's names. I didn't recommend this method to you because your question said you didn't have their names, but I'm glad that the problem is sorted now!