Family tree views omitting members?
Hi!
I just started filling out my tree on this site, but I'm running into issues viewing my relatives that I only imagine will keep getting worse as I fill it out and up. I have spent hours on this forum and google trying to figure it out with not much luck so I figured I'd try asking here if I'm missing something obvious.
A short story time and description of my current issues:
My paternal grandmother married and had two children. He divorced her and left when the kids were young and he then went on to remarry later and have more children - I think my aunt would like to see this branch extended in time.
A couple years later my grandmother had my father. My paternal grandfather has not been in the picture other than that very brief affair (he was already married at the time and his wife never had children).
Because there is no spousal relationship (and it would not be accurate to add one) between my grandmother and grandfather I can't get my grandfather to show up in my or my father's trees despite the direct biological line. I assume this is because my grandmother is the "preffered" parent and she would disappear if it was changed.
My front page is urging me to add my grandfather even if he's already listed as my father's father and we show up in his tree (when his wife is not "preffered").
I also can't get my grandmother's three children to show up at the same time in her tree due to the different paternities despite the fact that she raised them all on her own.
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Questions:
- Is there a way for me to include my grandfather in my tree without having him as the spouse of my grandmother?
- Is there a way to show all children of an individual if the children have different mothers/fathers?
- Bonus: Is there a way to hide the "add spouse/child" prompts everywhere. I feel like they mess up the visual.
I'm guessing what I'm asking is if there's a way to avoid having to "prefer" a view at every turn if there are more than one.
I completely understand that there are limits to how many people can be shown at any one time in the family tree views, but my current tree (picture attached, details removed) is currently only showing my parents, my maternal grandparents and my paternal grandmother. (I have also added all of my siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and all partners and children, none of them shown.)
I would love to expand my tree on here and add the large heap of information I already have on my ancestors and extended family, as well as source and verify new information, but these starting issues has me holding back as I know these forced preference issues will definitely come up again as I know people have remarried after a spouse passed and had more children, etc.
Thank you.
Best Answer
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1 As you have discovered, adding parents separately means that only one of them will appear in tree view. Looking at the detail view shows the two parents separately. A way around this is as follows:
a. Add the mother as a spouse to the father. You will now see a link from your father to both parents but a separate link from your father to his mother
b. Break the link from your father to his mother alone.
c. Delete the relationship between his parents.
The detail view will now show as follows for your father's parents:
It will also show both in tree view.
2. On tree view, if a person has, for example, more than one wife, there is an arrow in the top corner of the box for the spouse currently displaying. If you click this, you can switch the spouse being displayed. This will change the children displayed. You cannot display all the children at the same time.
3. Unfortunately I do not believe that there is a way to prevent the prompts being displayed. If you want to be able to produce a chart without them, there is third party software that can access the data in FamilySearch to produce trees in different formats. To access these, go to the Solutions Gallery found at
To view siblings on Family Tree, you need to switch to a descendancy view for a given person.
Regards
Graham Buckell
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Answers
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Thank you so much for your help.
I did not manage to link my grandparents without the couple relationship despite multiple attempts, but I've decided to go with it. I'll also check out the solutions gallery to see if I can produce an accurate looking tree for an upcoming family gathering.
The tree view sadly holds too many restrictions for me to use correctly and effectively unless I'm only focusing on direct lines, but the fan chart looks too good to split up the grandparents.
The simple, yet detailed person view and the free resources available on FamilySearch also makes it much easier to review hints and attach records than any other sites I've tried so I'm sticking with it.
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