Delete Person Unavailable

rachael9

According to the source with the title number provincialcounci00keit, which is attached to Mr. Wickoff, Mrs. Manuel Wickoff, 27M6-CZC, never existed, because he never married. Please delete her. According to the same title number provincialcounci00keit source his brother, Ralph Wickoff, KPQP-5BP, never married, but I am unable to delete, "?," his wife, FBNQ-JQX, who never existed. I already emailed support@familysearch.org about these two people who should be deleted, and they told me to post future questions here and gave me a link to https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/why-does-a-persons-name-have-a-question-mark-in-family-tree which was entirely unhelpful because not only have I just learned today that the two people I emailed about are still in existence, so I guess support couldn't be bothered to take care of the original ticket, thus duplicating my work and yours, by making me ask here a second time, which might be seen by some of the same people who answered the original email, but I have a SOURCE which states that ? never existed so I KNOW that she should be deleted. It would be helpful if you didn't operate like the circumlocution office from Charles Dickens' novel. Please just delete them and don't make me ask a third time. I'm very sorry for being so rude in this note, it's just that my patience has run thin on a number of issues when trying to deal with FamilySearch Support and employees.

NidaFL

You are absolutely correct . Unless it is the contributor who added that record, that ? - or non-extant person cannot be deleted by another contributor.

These steps should solve the issue

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-request-the-removal-of-a-familysearch-ancestor-page-ancestors-familysearch-org

You may also delete the relationship between Wickoff brothers and their imaginary wives.

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/a-person-in-family-tree-has-the-wrong-spouse

Hope this helps solve this problem of non-existent spouses.

rachael9

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I am sad to see that I will have to ask a third time, even though FamilySearch support made it sound like in their email to me that I could get in contact with someone who has the authority to delete people here, when delete person is unavailable. I hope that they do have people working on Sunday and manning the live chat, since Sunday is the only day I have time to do family history. I pray that I won't have to ask a fourth time.

Gordon Collett

Support rarely if ever makes edits in Family Tree.

Family Tree is a wiki-style, open edit, user run, universal family tree data base. Is it us users that do all the work here. The correct answer to your original question should have been, "if you have the documentation to show this man was never married, then edit the record to correct the problem."

Just go ahead and make a note in "Mrs. Wickoff's" life sketch that she never existed, delete the marriage information, and detach her from being a spouse, again putting in the reason statement when detaching that sources show she never existed. Do the same with that question mark.

These will not be the only isolated records floating around Family Tree. There must be thousands in the same state of being detached from all relationships but not deleted. All records deleted via merges or by the original contributor are also still in the database, and you can find them if you know the ID numbers or search for them in change logs. So don't be concerned with adding two more semi-deleted records.

rachael9

Gordon,

Thank you for your answer, however since clicking on "Delete person unavailable" says you should "Contact Support" I think that FamilySearch does want to be contacted so they can delete those nonexistent persons (even though you wouldn't think it based on how dashedly hard it has been to find the correct person to contact) I was able to use the live chat last Sunday to contact someone and they said they'd pass it on. However, I just checked and it looks like those two people haven't been removed yet from FamilySearch, so I'll keep your suggestion in mind and maybe if, say, in a month or so, nothing has been done, I'll do what you suggest and disconnect them from everyone, though I hate to do so since it's irritating to leave them floating.

NidaFL

@rachael Your question will be forwarded to a specialty team for review and resolution.

You may be contacted by that team if they need to gather more information.

Watch for a tiny red dot to appear next to the small envelope in the upper right portion of your screen that will indicate you have received a private message in regard to this subject

rachael9

@NidaFL Thank you for letting me know where to watch for a message if they contact me!