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Divorce & Remarriage On Family Tree Charts

By Emily Hutton
  • Last Updated: Jun 14, 2023

Family tree charts are powerful tools for tracing ancestry and documenting family relationships. They provide a visual representation of family history, spanning generations and bringing to life the stories of our ancestors. 

That said, accurately representing family relationships on a family tree chart can be uniquely challenging, particularly when documenting divorce and remarriage. In this article, we’ll explore why it can be important to show your family tree with divorce and remarriage, as well as how to indicate divorce on a family tree.

divorce

Why Divorce Is Important To A Family Tree

Divorce can create a complicated web of family relationships that can be difficult to capture on a family tree chart. 

The traditional structure of a family tree, with branches tracing the lineage of one or two parents, does not account for the complexities of divorced families. Because of this, it’s important to consider different ways to represent divorced couples and their children, while accurately reflecting the relationships within the family.

When documenting divorce on a family tree chart, it’s also important to consider the reason for the divorce. While this may not always be known, including it in the family history can provide a more complete picture of the family’s story. However, it’s important to be sensitive to the emotions and privacy of family members when making these decisions.

If it seems a bit difficult to track down your ancestors through divorce records, you could try looking through documents such as marriage bonds, delayed birth certificates, or a child’s baptism record. These other records can yield more information about their eventual divorce, potential name changes, and possible remarriage. By supplementing your search for their divorce records with these other indexes, you may turn up useful information that will enrich your family tree.

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Ways To Show Divorce On A Family Tree

You might be wondering how to show divorce on a family tree. While it can be tricky to show on a family tree, divorce is an important part of a family’s history. Ultimately, the question “How do you show divorce on a family tree?” is a deeply personal one that varies from family to family. 

One common method is to display the divorced couple as a single entity, with a broken line indicating the divorce between them. This method is simple and easy to understand but may not accurately represent the dynamics of the family.

Other families separate the divorced couple and create separate branches for each parent, displaying their children on the appropriate branch. This method may more accurately reflect the post-divorce family structure but can be more challenging to visualize. 

If you want to learn how to show divorce in a family tree maker, Ancestry, MyHeritage, and other family tree tracking sites have different ways of representing a divorce.

You can also choose not to include any divorces in the family tree, but a decision like that can obscure parts of your family tree that other members may want to know more about.

Why Remarriage Is Important To A Family Tree

Remarriage can add a layer of complexity to family tree charts, particularly when there are multiple marriages and blended families involved. Including stepchildren and half-siblings on the family tree chart is essential, as they often have relationships with both biological and stepparents or siblings. This can provide valuable insights into the family’s dynamics and create a more complete picture of their history.

If you think your birth parents may have gotten remarried, it may be a bit difficult to find them with only a little bit of information. If you want to learn ways to find out who your birth parents are, you can check out our guide to how to find birth parents without names.

remarriage

Ways To Show Remarriage On A Family Tree

One way to represent multiple marriages is to include each spouse and their children in their own branch of the family tree, with the individual branches connected by a dotted line to indicate the remarriage. But while this method can be visually appealing and straightforward to understand, it may not adequately convey the relationships between the members of the blended family.

Alternatively, some choose to represent the blended family as a single unit, with the remarried couple as the primary branch and their children listed below. This presentation can be more visually appealing, but it may not accurately represent the multiple layers of relationships within the family. In the case of a second marriage, a family tree with divorce and remarriage template can be useful in quickly representing the complex relationships in a non-traditional family.

If you’re trying to put together a full family tree but are finding it difficult to get information on distant relatives, you may have some luck by checking Ancestry birth records. Read our full guide to Ancestry birth records to learn more.

Key Takeaways

Divorce and remarriage are two kinds of huge life events that are very important to track on your family tree. Accurately representing divorce and remarriage on a family tree chart involves two things: considering the structure of the blended family, and finding a method that best reflects the relationships between family members. Careful consideration of stepchildren and half-siblings can also provide valuable insights into the family’s history.

Divorce and remarriage can be emotional topics for some family members to deal with, but clearly noting them down in a family tree can only benefit future generations. The more accurate your family tree is, the clearer your family’s history will become.

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