Step-mother showing as default mother on landscape tree despite biological mother marked preferred
It seems that the "Preferred" check box is being ignored for pedigree tree displays.
I was helping a patron in the FHC on Thursday 9/29 who showed me his landscape pedigree that his mother's mother was showing his mother's stepmother instead of his biological grandmother. We tried clicking the down-arrow on the grandmother to switch the pedigree to showing his biological grandmother. But it just wanted to bring up a pop-up box to have us display that biological grandmother's details page. It wouldn't change which grandmother actually shows on the pedigree.
So we checked the "Preferred" box for his biological grandmother and refreshed the tree. No change.
So then we marked his mother's relationship to that stepmother as "Step". No change to the tree after refresh.
The only way we could get his tree to show his biological grandmother, was to totally delete his mother's relationship (of any kind) to that stepmother.
Is this a new bug?
See his mother at "Martha Ida Sherman 3 May 1915 – 9 December 1994 • KWCZ-JKM"
See his grandfather "Lyman Royal Sherman 22 Dec 1860 – 10 Jan 1952 • KWCF-93G"
See his biological grandmother "Martha Ellen Jones 14 April 1876 – 26 July 1920 • KWCF-93P"
See his step-grandmother "Juliette Minchey 28 Sep 1871 – 6 Feb 1963 • KWN5-9F9"
Best Answer
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That is a very interesting situation. Unfortunately, I cannot replicate it. I tested a step-relationship in my own tree to see how the pedigree behaved. Then I took the liberty of reinstating the Step-parent relationship between Martha Ida Sherman KWCZ-JKM and Juliette Minchey KWN5-9F9. I still cannot replicate your issue. I can point out a couple of quirks that may help you to move between these people.
On the Landscape pedigree, when there are multiple parents there should be an arrow beside the parents. When you click that arrow, all sets of parents show up and you can click on which one you want to show. This imediately changes the preferred setting.
You will note that arrow does not exist on the Portrait version of the pedigree:
You can switch to the Landscape pedigree, change the parents and then switch back to the Portrait version of the pedigree and it will show the parents that you just changed to.
However, switching to the Fan chart does NOT appear to retain those new preferred parents. If, however, you change the preferred parents on the Landscape pedigree, switch to Fan chart, then go to the person page for Martha Ida Sherman and then go to her fan chart tree and, it will bring up those preferred parents, whichever are currently selected. This is an interesting behavior that I will follow up on.
Do be aware that there is a preferred spouse button as well as preferred parents button. Hopefully you didn't get confused and click the preferred spouse button for Martha Ida Sherman rather than the preferred parents button.
If you would like the ability to switch between parents on all pedigree formats, I recommend you add that suggestion in the Suggest an Idea area of FamilySearch Community.
If you can replicate your issue with Preferred parents not switching, please take screen shots and tell step-by-step what your actions were so we can follow up on it as a bug in the system.
So glad you came by with your question. Hope to see you around in the future!
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Answers
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@Jon W. Thomas it appears Juliette Minchey was a spouse in both the COLBY and the SHERMAN lines. Was Juliette Minchey being shown as Lyman Royal Sherman's spouse (instead of Martha Ellen Jones), AND also the spouse of Abraham Thomas Colby at the same time? Or did you have Martha Ida Sherman connected with her second husband, George Marcus Miller?
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@Ottley BQ - Yes. Juliette married Lyman Sherman in 1927 after she gave birth to all of Abraham Colby's children thru 1909.
We had dismissed the red flag on the pedigree (worried about the very thing you just pointed out).
Though we had Martha Ellen Jones showing as Lyman's wife & biological mother to Martha Ida Sherman, Juliette was still showing up as Martha Ida Sherman's mother on the pedigree. (Until we deleted all possible relationship connection types from Martha Ida to Juliette.)
Martha Ida Sherman didn't marry her 2nd husband George Marcus Miller until 7 years after her 1st husband Elmer Colby had died. No children from that 2nd marriage.
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@Jon W. Thomas it appears that the written and visual recap below describes the problem; it does appear to be a bug and someone FamilySearch will need to replicate the problem and correct, if needed.
Problem: The Patron's Step-Grandmother is erroneously shown in the Pedigree, rather than his Biological Grandmother.
Possible issue: When a persons (your patron) Biological Father's Biological Mother is the same person as their Biological Mother's Step-Mother, and the Biological Mother is listed as a step-child of the Biological Mother's Step-Mother, it does not appear that the system will allow the persons (your patron) Biological Grandmother to be displayed.
Does the landscape pedigree below clearly show the issue? It would probably be a good idea to restore the patron's mother as a step-child of her step-mother, so it can be viewed by FamilySearch. I am tagging @AnneLoForteWillson who is a moderator for Family Tree, so she can review, comment or instruct, as needed.
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@AnneLoForteWillson - Thank you. I've never noticed that "new?" right arrow showing before in a left margin of a couple's box on the landscape pedigree before. Is that new? It does appear to work in changing which pair of parents actually show on the pedigree. (Which used to be the behavior of the down-arrow next to either spouse).
Also, thank you for pointing out the difference between selecting preferred spouse checkmark button versus preferred parents checkmark button.
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