Each person’s information should describe their actual role and history. Do not assign the principal applicant’s filing history to a relative who was not included. A family plan bundles people under one account; an application does the opposite. Each person answers for their own history, and the fact that relatives were living in the same house during an earlier attempt does not give them the same filing record or the same answers to give.
Keep household records person-specific
The FAQ recommends initially including the intended eligible joining spouse and unmarried children under 21. Each adds US$15,000 processing and a US$1 million gift. Those family terms do not remove the need for accurate information about each person.
Write out, person by person, who was included in the earlier attempt, in what capacity, and what each of them signed. A spouse named as a derivative has a filing history; a spouse who was merely mentioned in a covering letter does not, and describing the second as the first creates an inaccuracy nobody needs. Age and marital status are read as at the relevant time rather than as they stand today, so record both.
Where a relative’s recollection differs from the paperwork, resolve it against the documents before anything is signed, and keep each person’s notices, identity records and correspondence in a set of their own so one account cannot be copied over another.