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I'm not sure of the laws in the UK but here in New Zealand hims can marry hims and hers can marry hers.
I am not debating the rights and wrongs but am concerned at the genealogy problems that will ensue in the future.
It has its difficulties now as the shes change their surname to their husbands (most, anyway) but the tracing of the ancestry through two hes and no shes will make things difficult. It is a system that has worked for a long time but now will be chaotic. For instance whose name do the children have , yes these people have children, and if double barreled in the future will they treble and quadruple them.
Even the two partners, do they retain their own surnames or take their partners. Either way, what will the records show? If two male names then which is which? Perhaps a glorious data base of DNA will sort things out.
I sure would not like the job. Can anyone simplify this for me.
Comments
I'm not sure exactly how this makes tracing ancestry more difficult than at present. There will still be two people and it's no more likely that one will change their name than with a male/female marriage (possibly a little less likely).
Who takes which name will, as with male/female marriages, be a choice for the couple to make. Records will show this in the same way regardless of the sex of those concerned.
Many children are now born to unmarried couples, or to people who don't stay in a relationship with the other parent. Surely that will cause more problems with tracing ancestry than with a properly documented same sex marriage?
DNA wouldn't help when donated eggs are used for IVF, or in adoption cases.
Unless you're a genealogist there's no point in trying to untangle it.
You only have to watch one of the genealogy programmes that are trying to trace ancestors of someone who has died to see how tricky is is anyway. I don't think it's anything to worry about at all.
By the way, there are no wrongs.
Those problems might not occur today but I do believe they will be replaced with new challenges for researchers. My great-niece has two half-siblings and the three children all have different double-barrelled surnames.
The problem with retaining names is that they might differ to the registered name. My father was registered as Arthur but his parents always used his middle name. A relative added Dad to his tree using the middle name but it's wrong; with those details he wouldn't appear officially.
As Carol says, it's important that the details are retained by someone interested in genealogy and who will pass it on. Incidentally, local family history societies are inundated with boxes of muddled family research. Keep it simple and keep it safe.
Incidentally I find it annoying that family history is so often traced purely through the male line simply because of a common surname.
Yes, we like to know the royalty tree and possibly to know that a trade has been in ones family for generations but otherwise these people are strangers to us.
Why the importance to trace ones folk to Lower Banstead in the 13th century.
A possible exception being property rights.
Think about it. You have a child - what an incredible, important thing in your life! Your child has a child - now you are a proud grandparent and you adore your grandchild, this living proof that your 'legacy' is living on. The grandchild procreates... and so on and so... these are YOUR future generations. But then within a frighteningly short period, those great, great grandchildren don't know who you were - and perhaps don't even care. Isn't that sad?
Some are really helpful, others not. But even if they don't have anything they may be able to tell you where the records are.
Jeremy Paxman discovered ancestors living in abject poverty – and fairly recently. Similarly with Twiggy's programme. A blink of an eye and life-changing events have occurred. Chris Moyles found ancestors who had died in slums from consumption. How different his life of excess is to theirs.
Our chairman has been compiling a list of all the successes listed in our club magazine archive for the city of literature. We also provide the local studies library in Nottingham with every print issue of the magazine, so there will be a history of not only the club, but the writers within it, and mentions of the writers who have ever judged our competitions and done workshops for us.
And on another subject entirely, it's thanks to you that I spent my morning writing two more pieces of flash fiction! http://lizy-writes.blogspot.co.uk/