There are so many possible family configurations that the system makes no assumptions about marital status or gender. A natural parent, a stepparent, or a guardian can be the “a” person in the family record. It is recommended that a school adopt a convention and then be consistent.
The following guidelines may help:
- If the parents are married, place the father in the parent “a” line and the mother in the “b” (second) line. The wife’s last name can be omitted or not if it is the same as the husband’s. There will be only a Family 1 for children of these parents.
- If the parents are divorced or separated, enter the biological parent as the ”a” parent and the stepparent as the “b” person.
- In the case of two families associated with a child, Family 1 is the custodial family and Family 2 is the non-custodial family. The Family 1 record may then have either the father or the mother as the “a” parent, and the spouse of that person will be the stepparent.
For same sex couples, any designation that is acceptable can be used. However, it is important to remember that there is only one biological mother and one biological father field in the standard system. A second field could, of course, be added.
What is most important is for data-entry to be done consistently and for the data entry persons to have a clear understanding among themselves about the nomenclature that they will use. If you wish to run a report that will list biological mothers, for instance, the data must be entered so that biological mothers have been identified using the Relation field.