Change the bad information on my father's 1950's Summary
In reviewing the Summary of my father, Don Mortimer's Summary in the new review page It needs to be changed. It has listed that he was married to Amy Hansen and the year. This marriage only lasted 7 months and a temple divorce was granted. He married Clara Wanda Moss Mortimer, Feb. 19, 1941 and there are 11 of us children. My father before he died asked that nothing connected to Amy Hansen be connected to him. Our family would like a more proper summary of our father put in that place, deleting any inference to Amy Hansen. There were no children from that marriage. Please contact me to help correct this summary. My name is Elaine Ricks, I am the family genealogist.
Answers
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Let me start by acknowledging the emotional aspect of your issue.
In theory, you could delete the marriage that ended in divorce from the FamilySearch Family Tree (FSFT), especially since it resulted in no children. As a non-member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints I don't know whether that would be considered religiously appropriate. But from a purely IT/genealogical point of view it can be done. However I STRONGLY urge you not to do so. Historians and genealogists cannot whitewash or ignore the bad or undesirable parts of history. We must record everything, even if we would rather pretend it never happened.
In the FSFT, for each person with multiple marriages you can set a "preferred marriage". The preferred marriage will be the first one to show up in family tree charts etc. The other marriages are still there, but are not as easy for users to see.
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@RicksElaineClara1, in support of @A van Helsdingen, let me share, with you, a knowledge article that speaks to this topic. Since the Discovery page is computer generated and based on the life events and relationships in the individual's record (or person page), then removing the spouse would likely be the only way to remove reference to her in the Discovery page.
I also respect his comment about not taking this approach. How you deal with the issue to completely up to you; however, if you choose to remove the relationship, it is very likely that, in time, someone will find this unconnected spouse and re-add her to the family tree. It's just the nature of a collaborative tree.
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RicksElaineClara1,
another perspective as you contemplate "best approach"...
The current profile for your loved one at the Family Tree, and which feeds the Discovery page view per Mike357, might be considered as "proper" by many, including myself, non LDS: Accurate sourcing and context, beautiful family memory section with life footprints and family images showing his legacy. The 1st marriage relationship is sourced and solid from a genealogical standpoint and shows a relationship in his life which likely made him who he was in some way. The collaborative notes/dispute section has a reference to the first marriage and gives proper perspective and how the failed marriage was handled within his church community, so I see a man who is human, realized for whatever reason a mistake was made and was man enough to do the right thing in his mind. That is a responsible act in itself and a proper one.
vs.
Many trees in Ancestry.com have access to the same set of genealogical sources, shared family tree info, has the two marriages listed, but reading as an outsider, lacks the context, love and admiration of the Family Tree profile.
IMO, the FT collaborative shared profile, as is, gives best context..
As a side note, congrats on the elevation to "family genealogist"... your passion and contributions and caring enough to ask for best approaches even for the new "Discovery report view", makes you a worthy leader for representing your loved ones.
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