Spouse Relationships

Rebecca Falck

In our database spouses generally do not get their own records.  So lets say that Mary is the primary person on the record and her husband Bob is the secondary.  Then on another record Sally is primary and Joe is secondary.  I definitly know how to make a relationship connection showing that Mary and Sue are friends.  But how do I create (or can we) a relationship link showing that Bob and Joe are friends.  I want it to be their names that show up, not the primary record holders.



I think that it's not possible and the only way is to just do a non-constituent relationship or for the secondary person to get their own records and mark the other one as HOH.  Just curious if anyone has any brilliant ideas I have not considered!  



Thanks in advance!

Jen Claudy

I do not believe it is possible to create a relationship link between two non-constituent records.  One of them must have an actual constituent record, because otherwise, there is no where for that relationship link to exist.  What you can do is create a Relationship Type of "Relation to Spouse" or "Friend of Spouse" and then add a Note on the Relationship link.  So in your example, the link could be either between Sally & Mary with "Friend of Spouse" as both Relationship and Reciprocal and a Note on that Relationship Record indicating that it is Bob & Joe who are friends, or (more complex) a link from Mary to Joe and another from Sally to Bob using the same Relationship Type.  I would personally opt for the first.  If the relationship is so important as to need a complicated solution, I would think Bob and or Joe would warrent having their own constituent records.

Rebecca Falck

Jennifer Claudy:

I do not believe it is possible to create a relationship link between two non-constituent records.  One of them must have an actual constituent record, because otherwise, there is no where for that relationship link to exist.  What you can do is create a Relationship Type of "Relation to Spouse" or "Friend of Spouse" and then add a Note on the Relationship link.  So in your example, the link could be either between Sally & Mary with "Friend of Spouse" as both Relationship and Reciprocal and a Note on that Relationship Record indicating that it is Bob & Joe who are friends, or (more complex) a link from Mary to Joe and another from Sally to Bob using the same Relationship Type.  I would personally opt for the first.  If the relationship is so important as to need a complicated solution, I would think Bob and or Joe would warrent having their own constituent records.

Thank you!  I like the idea of changing/adding the relationship type, I think that will work well.  I also agree about you idea about when their own record might be warrented.  Thanks so much for your thoughts!