Most genealogists have no problem understanding where to place their ancestors and relatives in a standard family tree template. Put in the name of an ancestor, connect that person to his or her spouse, and then connect the two parents to their children. It seems very simple. Things get more complex if you are adding relatives who have multiple partner fertility. Suddenly, a standard template isn’t going to work.
A study done by Cassandra Dorius, who is a demographer at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research looked at multiple partner fertility. This technical sounding term simply means a situation where a woman has more than one child, and where the children have different fathers. A more common way to describe this type of situation might be to use the phrase “baby daddy”. This was the first ever study done on multiple partner fertility.
According to the study, more than one -fourth of women in the United States that have two or more children have those children with more than one man. This worked out to about 28% of women, overall. The study analyzed data from around 4,000 women. These women were interviewed more than 20 times over a span of 27 years. All of the women had gone through their childbearing years by the time the study concluded.
When you break down the original percentage of women who had children with multiple men by the race of the woman, the percentages change a bit. 59% of the African American women in the study had children with more than one man. 35% of Hispanic women in the study had children with more than one man, and 22% of white women had children with more than one man. The study did not take into account the race of the fathers.
Many of the women who had children with multiple men started having children when they were young. Several stated that they had more children than was “ideal” while they were a young adult.
How does one fit this type of family into a family tree? One way to do that is to set up a matrilineal family tree. Follow the female ancestors of the family, and connect to each woman’s biological offspring. You might have to set up a template that indicates if children are half siblings or full siblings. Or, you could, potentially, design a family tree that has extra room to include additional space to place each child’s biological father into. If you want to include everyone, you may need to create your very own, customized, family tree template.
Image by Greg Grossmeier on Flickr