Children can be added and deleted, from the Children grid, below the main person details. Note: The list of children is specific to those with the active spouse (see section on Multiple Partners and Spouses).
It is best practice in genealogy that children are shown in birth order. This is often obvious if we have the dates of birth for them. However, it isn’t necessarily obvious in the case of twins. Also, particularly with older genealogies, the birth order might be known (for example children are often listed in seniority in wills), but years of birth aren’t.
There are tools in Pedigree Forge to help you identify children that may not be in birth order, automatically sort them, or manually move them up and down if required.
In the example above, Pedigree Forge has noted that Marianne is shown after Charles, and as their dates of birth are known, there is an error in the ordering (Marianne has exclamation marks around her order number).
The “up and down” arrow button will automatically sort the children into chronological order—so long as the dates of birth are known. The in individual up and down arrows will move the selected child up or down manually.
It is a common task, particularly before the start of civil registration, to add children based on baptisms from a particular church, and these are often extracted at the same time. To help with entering this information, the “Family Group” dialog can be shown by clicking on the two children button, above the children grid:
This allows dates of birth, and baptism to be edited together in a single place. The final button can be used for creating children from a census transcript. See the section Working with Sources section, for further information.
It wasn’t uncommon for ancestors to have had a large number of children, all of whom were born in the same village. If you have added a number of children, with approximate dates of birth, but no place of birth, these can all be set at once. First, ensure that you have the correct parents selected, with one of them as the current person in the edit panel, and the other as the selected spouse. Then click on the “Set All Children’s Place of Birth” option from the “Tools” menu:
The “Bulk Set Children’s Place of Birth” dialog will allow you to enter the place of birth, and Apply will do the bulk change.
Note: only children with no place of birth for the current couple will have the information added. If a child already has a place of birth, it will not be added.