Marriage only relation no dna
I think people who are only related because of a marriage where absolutely no dna relations are matched should not be able to connect their family history taking over other people family tree. A family tree means just that FAMILY/FAMILY HISTORY not someone adding their entire family heritage because one of their ancestors they don't even know anything about married my grandmother. Now when I do the "where I come from " on this site it's showing me every person from my step grandfather's family and I have to search through his family to find mine. Yes there are relatives that are distant relatives that have entered family that's perfectly fine it's family there's my ancestry.
So how do I get my step grandfather's family to remove their completely unrelated family members from my family's heritage tree?
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You appear to be misunderstanding the format of Family Tree, which is "open-edit" and means anyone is entitled to make changes to any individual included in the database (excepting a relatively small amount of "read-only" profiles).
I carry out lots of work on totally unrelated individuals, which helps to differentiate their identities from my own relatives / ancestors and thus clearly show they should not be merged with others on the system of very similar identity.
But there is especially no reason not to create records for / work on existing records of more distant "relatives" - e.g. those who have "married into" your family.
However, I can understand your point:
Now when I do the "where I come from " on this site it's showing me every person from my step grandfather's family and I have to search through his family to find mine.
These FamilySearch "campaigns" often cause annoyance to FS users, as they are sometimes not well conceived and contain information likely to confuse, or is just plain wrong. (One, on the "Meaning of your surname" - or similar title - has proved to be especially annoying to many). In your example, the FamilySearch programming appears to have extended what you consider / define as being "my family" way beyond those bounds.
From past experience, it seems FamilySearch is unlikely to change its programming here, so it might be best to go to your settings and "uncheck" certain boxes, to you can opt out of receiving such notifications in future. Some find these notifications to be most helpful, but others (like me!) opt out as I would find receiving such details to be annoying, rather than of help or interest.
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@PetersonMelissa Please go to Family Tree, click on the Overview tab and review the information there. Particularly where it states: "The FamilySearch shared tree uniquely strives to have just one public profile for every deceased person who has ever lived. Descendants contribute what they know about a person to a single, shared profile, rather than scattering their knowledge across multiple profiles on several trees, some of which may have privacy barriers."
Since FamilyTree is this shared tree in which every person who has lived should have one and only one page, your step-grandfather also is to have one and only one Family Tree profile. The same goes for your grandmother. There is no other place to record the historical fact that they were married than on those one pages for them.
Certainly FamilySearch could do better in accounting for and following just Preferred Parent flags in their activities and campaigns but insisting that people not record historical facts about their families is not the way to go about it.
There are two things to keep in mind, also. For very many people, "Family" is far more than DNA. It includes all the in-laws, all the adopted and fostered kids, and sometimes even adopted grandparents. The other is that when FamilySearch says "Family" they mean our entire family which actually includes everyone that now and has ever lived because we are related to all of them. (See: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-more-closely-related-than-we-commonly-think/ and https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19331938)
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@PetersonMelissa this Help Center article may have the answer you need:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-set-the-preferred-spouse-or-parents
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I do understand that family also consists of in-laws and adopted family members, but when you only know the person who married into a family his brother and sister in-law and not any other members of that family people shouldn't be able to add their entire family back to what I seen to the 900s from the person who started a family tree just from a marriage. Then email the person who is trying to build their heritage tree for their own children and grandchildren and tell them that they can go to Ancestry or another site and pay for it (I have screen shot of her telling me this) my son and sister are both beside myself the ones given permission to add to our family tree. Now I have an entire family dated back to the 900s attached to myself, mom and grandmother. If I put my grandmother's last husband instead of my real maternal grandfather I'm blocked from adding anything to do with my mother's real father. I did explain to the woman that my grandmother's last husband had children with his first wife and I was told he remarried after my grandmother passed so he should be connected to the not my grandmother because she's found in her family's heritage tree as well as I have personal reasons I don't want her family member associated to my family and if I didn't have to I wouldn't add my biological father, but without him I can't add my paternal side. No one should be made to add people to their family history if they choose not to, what if someone has an adopted grandfather and wants to add him instead of the step grandfather but the step grandfather's family has already added all their family and emails you telling you to go pay Ancestry or another site, so they can access to Ancestry and this site (again I believe I still have the screen shots of the email). I told her I'm thinking of just deleting my account she asked me not to. Her family history should start with her not me going into my mother (that she has as my step grandfather's daughter with my grandmother, my grandmother didn't have any children with that man) and then to my grandmother.
So how do I fix all this mess or do I just have to delete my account to get rid of association with that family?
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So how do I fix all this mess or do I just have to delete my account to get rid of association with that family?
This Help Center article explains how you can set your preferred ancestors so that your tree shows your direct ancestors.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-set-the-preferred-spouse-or-parents
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@Paul W I do understand what everyone is saying my problem is that before the woman took control over my maternal side of work I had done the "Where am I from" was accurate now I have to search literally the entire map instead of straight to my family heritage.
Now from my understanding of doing "family search" you're searching for your own family not being attached to someone else's, you #1 don't know #2 your mother and yourself definitely shouldn't be attached to if anyone it should have only been my grandmother not my mother being put as his child with my grandmother, that'd really be a miracle of God since my mother was born in '48 and my grandmother didn't meet the man until '71.
Before I started using your site I read that it's to find your family and where you come from, well I and my family maternal or paternal are not and don't belong to the Cathcart family or their history I can guarantee that the person adding their "family search" to my family and sending me emails.
Maybe I should just delete my account and go to a different site this is ridiculous having to go through this the only thing I or anyone should have problems with when doing family search is finding a family member and making sure you have the correct person and trying to find out anything about them, not dealing with someone else and their ancestry and being sent personal emails because you delete a step grandparent to add your mother's biological father.
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@PetersonMelissa, you still appear to be operating under a misunderstanding of the basic, underlying structure of the Family Tree on FamilySearch: nobody can "take control" of anything here, as it is a single, shared tree, and it is open-edit: anyone can edit nearly anything, after signing in. This includes you.
Profiles in the Family Tree can have multiple spouses attached. You can mark the one you're descended from as "preferred", and that's what will show in the various tree views for you. You can also change the type of relationship between a parent and child: it defaults to "biological", but there's also "step", "adoptive", and a few others. This means that you can accurately and fully capture all of the family relationships among your relatives: all of the marriages, and all of the children and step-children.
I haven't a clue what the various fluff pieces (such as "Where am I from") are set up to do in the case of multiple spouses, but I suggest you just ignore them. You can use the fan chart's "birthplaces" option if you really, really want a geographic summary.
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@PetersonMelissa Thank you for the additional information. If I am understanding the situation more fully now, there is probably an easy solution to your concern. Is it that this other user has put your mother as a step-child of her mother and that other husband?
There is certainly a difference between "my step-father" and "my mother's other husband." Since your mother was 23 years old when her mother remarried, I think you are certainly justified in stating that he was never your mother's step-father and leaving your mother just as a child of her mother and father and no other parental relationships. If the concern is that your mother currently looks like this in Family Tree:
Then just click the circled pencil icon then go under the child's name where you will see Remove or Replace and go through the routine to remove her as child from that family. Be sure to put a very thorough and detailed reason statement. Something like "Personal knowledge of her daughter: Child was 23 years old when her mother remarried and never had any type of father relationship to the new husband. Neither she, her mother, nor the new husband ever considered there to be a 'step' relationship."
Do not, however, remove accurate history. Do not detach that other husband from his wife who happens to be your grandmother. They did get married.
This should also take care of the trouble you are seeing in the activities.
However, I still want to stress that you are not building a person family tree, heritage or otherwise, if Family Tree. You are adding to the family tree of all of humanity. Once you have contributed information to the general pool, you really can't retrieve it and if you read the terms of use for the website you will see that when you enter any information into family tree, you give FamilySearch full, complete, and irrevocable rights to that information. It is no longer yours. If you delete your account, all you do is remove your access to Family Tree. None of the information you contributed to the site regarding any deceased person will be removed.
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Personally, I think Family Tree should have an opening page like this:
Too many people still just do not understand how Family Tree works. We are adding to one gigantic tree and once we add information, there is really no getting it back.
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@PetersonMelissa Your suggestion has been passed on the a Product Manager.
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@Gordon Collett I have to disagree. I think most people do understand the shared nature of Family Tree (and if not become readily acquainted through 'collaborative' edits of their 'known' family lines).
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I thank you all for your information, I of all people understand that family means more than just dna I have been mom and auntie and granddaughter by many that are not dna related, my point/complaint is that the woman added her entire family where I feel only my mother's father should be and now I've discovered that the same woman is now going through my paternal side that has literally nothing to do with my step grandfather she's now adding my paternal side to my mother and still attaching my step grandfather into my paternal family. No she wasn't asked nor given permission to even look at my father's family. When is this going to end or do I have to erase everything in my family search and delete family search?
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PetersonMelissa You could be wrong about what the woman added. She may have added one set of parents, and others have added all the "flap trap" going back into fantasy genealogy for that line. All of that is in some of my lines, too. It doesn't bother me.
I do volunteer lineage research for two different organizations. I always find additional sources which are not on people in FamilySearch, and I will always add the new sources. In several instances, however, I discovered lineage errors. Other than once, I do not make any changes to the lineage in FamilySearch because the FamilySearch communities are way too full of territorial disputes from people who think like you. I tell the people whose lineage I'm documenting that the FamilySearch tree has their family lineage wrong and if they want it fixed, they need to fix it themselves based on what I documented for them. (My documentation is always verified by other people, by the way). I will add sources, but I no longer fix errors.
I'm curious. Are you glad I leave incorrect lineage?
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...way too full of territorial disputes from people who think like you.
@Gail Swihart Watson ...Divisive statement - Family Tree is way to full of people?!! Really?! Could perhaps you and the people who check your work be wrong once?
Yes I'm glad you leave notes and tell 'the family' (whomever) they can review/change things.
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genthusiast Yes, you are right, it is divisive, but you have to admit that there are SO many people complaining that someone has changed their tree. People like you and others routinely push the play button and patiently explain that it is a world tree, yada, yada, but the number of times I see this thought process on someone's part makes ME discouraged. Look at the previous comment: "No she wasn't asked nor given permission to even look at my father's family." I find THAT divisive because how does one know why someone is working on the tree? If I add a new source, do I really need to add a comment about why I'm working on this person?
And no, I do not feel motivated to leave a message indicating what I believe is wrong with generation connections or wrong siblings or wrong spouses. In my mind that is just asking for hate mail, and I don't want to go there.
Finally, yes of course it could be me that is wrong. The lineage society I do research for changes their "proven" lines every day as new or conflicting information changes something. That could clearly apply to my work. BUT, my lineage is backed up by sources that comply with current geneleagical standards. I can't say that about the few lineages I have seen that I believe are wrong.
(That's another thing I'm tired of hearing. How much trash the tree has turned into. That is NOT my experience! Lots of good, solid work is what I routinely see! But that is a different set of threads. )
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No Family Tree does not require anyone's permission to make changes. I like you am fortunate to see mostly good work - adding Sources that do not change profile identity. However the open-edit Tree structure provides this risk opportunity - and it really is super easy to do harmful damage - carelessly or maliciously. I tend to focus on preserving 'My Tree' - because I really don't want my near relations morphed into someone else - so I understand this sentiment very well.
Thanks for clarifying - keep up the good work 👍!
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I do a lot of de-conflating conflated profiles in Family Tree. That means I am constantly touching "other people's" trees and making significant changes. It is all one tree and we are all free to work anywhere on it. The vast majority of responses I get express gratitude, often followed by requests for me to do even more work. I have encountered very few tree trolls.
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