genealogy/family-tree-building site or program?

Sibyl Siwik: All of them do.You put the children's biological parents in, then either 1) Add an "Adoption" fact or 2) Put a note in the biographical note section of child and adoptive parents, saying they adopted them.You do that with complete strangers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, second cousins once removed ...Genealogy is about genes. In the genealogy world, parents are the female whose egg and the male whose sperm united to make the child. Period. Unless there is a blood relation, you don't connect the adoptee to the adoptors. Family trees have no room for the kindly priest who guided the young man through adolescence, favorite math teachers, coach, mentor, scout leader, drill Sargent, family dogs, second-best goldfish, even those all had some effect on the child.As an aside, 50% of the genealogists out there disagree with me, and show adoptive parents as biological parents.http://www.tedpack.org/rec_adoption.htmlhas more than you may want to wade through on the sub! ject of recording adoptions. It starts out"Adoption is the steel cage death match of Genealogy. It causes more arguments than any other subject in our little hobby. The second time they replaced the mirror behind the bar in the tap room at our genealogy society's clubhouse, the rules committee banned all discussion of adoption."...Show more

Jene Licausi: All genealogy software does, the trick is figuring out how to do it. Check the help files for "multiple parent links" or "parent links".You do want to be sure to only enter the individual (child) once, then add parent links to the couples. On the links there is a way to adjust the relationship type i.e. biological (default), adopted, guardian, challenged, or unproven.The advantage to doing it this way over simply making notes is that A) The legal and the biological relationship will both be important to keep straight in your research. Many documents will list the adopted parents, and B) it maintains the data integrity! and keeps the computer/database genie happy....Show more