Is it possible to add to AdoptedChild template ?

Question

I am creating a new app, and I'd like to make it adoption-friendly, so that it can display either the  biological family or the adoptive family of the primary person - OR both!  I've done that with a previous app (SixDegrees) with quite a bit of fancy stick-handling (that's a Canadian hockey term...), but I'd like to do it with this new app, and retrofit my other apps to also handle this.

The easiest, and much more reliable way to do it than what I did with my previous app, would be if there was a way to include in the AdoptedChild template a link to the Adoptive Profile and the Biological Profile for the current profile person.

Currently the fields you can complete in the template are:

• Adopted Father
• Adopted Mother
• Date
• Location
• Biological Father
• Biological Mother

I would like to propose that we add optional fields for

• Adoptive Profile
• Biological Profile

and those would hold the WikiTreeID for the appropriate profiles of the Adopted Child in question.

If the adoptee doesn't have two separate profiles (like myself, up until recently), then you could ignore these fields and not use them in the template.  HOWEVER, if you DO have two profiles, then this would make it easier for apps to grab both sets of data ... and .. would also make switching from one profile to the other easier for anyone viewing the profile.

Thoughts ?

Comments

Great idea Greg! Any improvements on how WikiTree handles adoptions is welcomed by me. This need to have two completely different profiles is a pain...

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Thanks for the upvote, Patty!

I'm not suggesting doing away with the two profiles - it is helpful to have two so that you can compartamentalise the two families.  However, I'm hoping the addition to the template would make it easier to connect them together, so for apps that want to display both, or switch from one to the other, would have an easy and standard link they could follow.  And .. as an added bonus, make it easier for viewers of the profiles to quickly flip back and forth too.

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Do you have two separate profiles for one person then?  I have multiple adoptions in my family tree and it seems like that would be a lot of work keeping their biographies in synch, not to mention that any children the adopted person had couldn't be linked to both profiles.  Or am I missing something?

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@Nancy, there are some instances where a living person can have two different profiles, for example if the person wants their main profile connected to their adoptive family but also wants to have their DNA information on WikiTree: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Adoptions_and_Multiple_Parents

It shouldn't be used often though.

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How about a template for those of us that found out we are the result of a NPE? I found out at age 72, the man that was on my birth certificate and parented me for my first 8 years was not my biological father. I know I am not the only one here that made that same discovery via DNA testing.

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Great idea Nancy! I’m an adoptee and also have the NPE, confirmed by DNA. It would be nice to have it all displayed on my profile in a nicer format.

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Nancy, that's a great idea, especially as DNA is bringing more and more of these situations to light. Adoptees aren't the only ones who want to honor both sets of parents.

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Greg and Co.,

It sounds like we do need to make some changes to {{Adopted Child}}, and clarify the rules on its usage. We have never formally discussed it.

Although this might seem tangential, or like a step back, I posted this first: Any input on standardizing Navigation Boxes for Adopted Child, Succession, and Disambiguation?

Chris

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Thanks Chris for that - I appreciate the consideration, and didn't appreciate the larger picture, but glad we're thinking big.

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Update: There is a new proposal for a {{Special Family Link}} nav box instead of {{Adopted Child}}.

I don't know if the needs for your app, Greg, would be met by this proposal.

Answer 1

As an adoptee with two profiles this would be great. My husband, kids and I have all done DNA tests and they have to be attached to my biological profile. I would love to have an app where I can see everyone.

Answer 2

I'm not an adoptee, but I do have adoptees in the family and, like all of us, I sometimes run into adoptions in the tree. This change would definitely make life in the tree a bit easier for all of us.  Thanks for thinking of it!

Answer 3

For sure.  This is great!   I believe I would be using it.  I have some adoptive people I'd like to add.   

I also have some folks where their mother died and aunts raised them.  Not sure they were officially adopted and not so sure how to add that to my profiles.  Especially since census and things gave them a different last name.   Maybe this could help.

Answer 4

That’s a fabulous idea. I have a couple of adoptees in my family so it would make it easier to do profiles for each of their family lines.

Answer 5

That is a good idea. In fact I would like WikiTree to acknowledge that adopted persons can be connected to the Big Tree also by their adoptive parents, because by law they are connected. The law does not discern between biological and adopted children.

Comments

Thanks Jelena!  Glad you agree it's a good idea. However, WikiTree has always welcomed adoptive family connections - it's an option for any profile to choose whether to indicate the father and/or mother are biological or not biological.  The Connection Finder does not "stop finding" when it finds a non-biological connection - so my Adoptive profile, where I indicated my parents were non-biological, still show me as many degrees away, yet somehow still connected to King Charles III and many more ... including to my Biological profile - we're cousins to ourselves (which is funny and weird at the same time!).

The one limitation that I think you might be running up against is that a single profile can only have one set of parents, unlike other sites or programs which allow you to enter multiple sets of parents.  Hence the exception for allowing a second profile in this specific instance.  Whereas that's a bit more work, especially if you're used to how other sites deal with it, there is some value in the simpler one set per person.  For me, it allows me to focus : "Now I'm in Bio-mode doing my research" vs "Adoptive family update time".

Hope that helps.

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Okay, but how do you deal with cases where a child wasn't adopted as baby? The profile I think of is this one and her brother. They were orphans in 1917 and Horch and his wife first cared for them until in 1928 the adoption was officialised. They kept their first names, only the last name changed.

Answer 6

Greg, I have two profiles, and I wondered at the time why this was not included. So I included it in my biography. It makes sense to include it as an option in the template.

I would however like to add an extra bit of information.  Could we include "DNA: Yes/No" beside the profile ID for the Birth profile.  I had a discussion in two languages by email, with someone who was missing the fact that my DNA was recorded on my Birth Profile, and wasn't showing up on my 'real' (adopted) name.