Real and adopted family trees
Hi, I am an adopted person and have an adopted family tree. But I'd like to start a separate tree that shows my real family that I've found through your website. How can I do this?
Answers
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There are not separate trees in FamilySearch. We are working in one, single, universal tree. Any deceased individual in Family Tree can be seen by and worked on by all users.
The goal of Family Tree is to have one, and only one record for every person that has ever lived. So you do not create a duplicate of yourself, just add you biological parents to your existing record in Family Tree. To do this, go to your detail page and scroll down to Family Members. To the left, you will see the link Add Parents:
Click there to add your biological parents. You detail page will end up looking, correctly, with this format (generated on Beta site):
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And if your 2 birth parents (I'm not too comfortable with "real" parents) were not married, then you add 2 more couples in addition to the adopted parent couple. I have an adopted relative and am working on the birth side. That relative shows an adopted relationship to the adoption parents; a biological relationship to birth dad and a step relationship to birth dad's wife. Then relative shows a biological relationship to birth mom and a step relationship to birth mom's husband. Step is probably not an accurate relationship, but it is the best available in the drop down list.
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I don't want my 'birth' parents and my adopted parents to appear on the same page though. I want create separate trees for each not shown on the same page. I'm wondering if there is a way to have two trees with separate pages for each?
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The problem is that biological and adopted parents and siblings and past generations will end up making a huge unintelligible mess. 2 trees would be easier for me to understand what I'm looking at. You would think Family Search would understand when it came to adopted peoples need to do this.
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This is not an environment for separate trees. It is one world tree and everyone's multiple sets of parents are all on the same tree.
If you want to build completely separate trees, I recommend using a different web site. I use Ancestry in addition to FamiySearch and have multiple trees in Ancestry because I am doing family history research for me, in-laws, in-laws of cousins, in-laws of in-laws, birth families of adopted relatives, and in once case an in-law side to a birth half sister of an adopted relative. I find it highly useful to maintain my information in both places and to research in both places. Ancestry lets you harness DNA matches in their research tools, and I manage 14 sets of DNA, including several adopted relatives to assist with their birth trees.
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Since you are living, one thing to keep in mind is that no one will ever see the screen you see unless you show it to them.
Any of your children or other relatives that see "you" when signed onto Family Tree are actually seeing a duplicate with a different ID than what you see for yourself.
You certainly do have the liberty to create a living duplicate of yourself as another starting point to the main tree. It would have a different ID number and not be connected to any of the other living people in your account unless you connect them also to you. Then you could have a different set of parents on each copy of you.
You should not create any duplicates of deceased people in Family Tree.
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Kevinmcginnis4 It is not a mess at all. In fact it is extremely well organized. I'm not sure what you are envisioning will happen, but having 3 sets of parents (which most adopted individuals will have) is quite doable. Depending on which line I am working on, I make one set the "preferred" couple so that their line displays when I go into pedigree mode.
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All families are huge, unintelligible messes. I love this picture from a RootsTech lecture about what you run into with small communities. It shows a real pedigree chart from a family in one such:
How's that for a pedigree chart! Real life is a mess.
In any event, since we really are looking at a pedigree chart that just shows direct ancestors or just looking a group of grandparents, parents, and children at any one time, you'll learn to deal with your family net (I don't know why people limit themselves to the term tree) as you get familiar with everyone.
But to start with, it is fine to have yourself twice if that keeps the view simpler for you for now. I think you will find in the future that it really doesn't make that much difference.
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Gordon, it sounds like you know what I'm feeling and what I'm looking for. How do I create a living duplicate of myself as another starting point to the main tree and have a different ID number? This would be like having two different accounts? I could maybe sign-in with my real father or mothers last name and create another account like that. What would you suggest?
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From any Family Tree page click on the Recents menu. At the very bottom you will see Add Unconnected Person:
Click there and add your information.
In the future if you discover this was not really necessary after all (say when you discover that your adoptive parents and biological parents share family lines) keep in mind that you cannot merge two living people through Possible Duplicates, you will only be able to merge the two copies of you through "Merge By ID."
Do not create two different accounts. That will just cause all sorts of trouble.
You can go into your settings and set a preferred starting person for whenever you open Family Tree. You can switch between your two copies depending on which family you are working on easily using the Recents menu. You can see that I have two names above the dividing line in the image above.. You will have both of you at the top of your Recents menu when the new you is set as the starting person.
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