Entering multiple marriages

Roberta Wysong

Nathaniel Mothershead (K26G-84Q) is listed in the tree with his marriage to Elizabeth Ware. They have five children listed. Only two of these children are from this marriage. The first three are from his earlier marriage to Lucinda Tilley. The marriage to Lucinda has two tree listings (Nathaniel 9W94-32G from an IGI record) and (Nathaniel K4FQ-RZP with no sources)

Narthaniel also has a still earlier marriage to Cornelia Morton (found that one from an IGI record and with Cornelia listed as Carrie. Nathaniel 9SQZ-9FP) I have names of two of their at least five children.

I also have all three marriage records - all found on Family Search.

How to proceed? How to move children from one marriage to another?

Teresa Winterton

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-merge-duplicates-in-family-tree-by-id

It sure sounds like you have your work cut out for you. Before you begin, please keep in mind that there are sometimes people with the same name married to spouses with the same name. I know that sounds crazy but I have had it happen 3 times in my own family tree. You may need to do merges and move the children. Here are instructions for when you have the ID numbers. For more information about merging, please click on the link at the top of this comment. There are more links at the bottom of the above article.

Steps (website)        

1. In Family Tree, display the person page of one of the duplicate records.
2. If the Details section is not displayed, click Details. 
3. Click Merge by ID. It is located in the Tools section, along the right side of the page. 
4. Enter the ID number with capital letters and the hyphen. 
5. Click Continue. The merge screen opens in a new browser tab.
   • Left side: This is the possible duplicate. It is deleted if you merge the records.
   • ​​Right side: This is the record you started from. It is saved if you merge the records.
6. Decide if the records are about the same person. 
   1. Compare the left and right sides for matching names, dates, places, and family members. 
   2. Read any warning messages on the screen.  
   3. If the record on the left is the most accurate, click Switch to keep it instead. 
   4. If the records are not about the same person, click Not a Match. If the records are about the same person, click Yes Continue. If you are not sure, click Cancel. 
7. On the surviving record, review all information that has a green background. Highlighted information will be copied to the surviving record when you complete the merge. If this information should not be saved on the surviving record, click Undo.
8. Click Continue. 
9. Finish the merge: 
   1. Review the surviving record. 
   2. If everything looks as it should, click Finish Merge. 
   3. To explain why you merged these records, either select a suggested reason statement or enter one of your own.
10. Click Save. 

Immediately after the merge and for a short time, an “undo” option is available. It lets you easily unmerge the two records.    

Here is an article for correcting parent/child relationships.

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-correct-parent-child-relationships-in-family-tree

One more thing to keep in mind when you do merges is please check the sources. Sometimes after a merge, there may be sources that actually do not belong to that person and should be removed by clicking on View Source and then click on Detach.

Here is a link to a really good article to help you decide if two record should be merged.

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-decide-if-two-records-in-family-tree-are-about-the-same-person

Good luck with this task.

Carol Ann1

Hi Rebecca,

If you are SURE the Nathaniel's are the same person you could merge them, but In looking at them it appears they are different people. One died in Indiana and the other in Missouri.

As for the children I would copy their PID and add them to the correct parents, again only if you are SURE. AFTER adding them you can remove them from the incorrect parents or you can show them as a step child in relationship to the mother.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for using the Community,

Carol

Roberta Wysong

Thanks for the help about merging. I hadn't found how to do it by ID.

Yes, there are two Nathaniel Mothersheads about the same age from Kentucky. Some sources say Lucy, the Missouri wife, is the Lucinda Tilley from Shelby Co KY. However I am convinced that that is wrong. 1) One of my Nathaniel's daughters' death certificate says that her mother's maiden name is Tilley. 2) A Biographical book from Missouri says that that Lucy was born in Missouri from Ky born parents who came to Missouri very early and that her maiden name is Boggess. 3) Lucinda Tilley who married Nathaniel Mothershead in 1841 and had three children between 1842 and 1848 probably died in 1848 as Nathaniel married again in 1849. Family Search erroneously lists Lucinda's three children as belonging to Nathaniel's last wife so that is what led me to search for a wife before the third wife as there was a 7-year gap between the last child from Nathaniel's first marriage and the first one I attribute to Lucinda. Also, there was no adult female in Nathaniel's household in 1840 census.

Thanks, too, for the info about how to get the children with the correct parents.

Roberta