Timeline Marriage out by 2 years

Wayne M Norton

I have a marriage on 28 June 1867, although the timeline displays the date as 2 years out and the other marriage details are different

Is this a glitch?

Wayland K Adams

Hi Wayne - Welcome to FamilySearch Community and asking your question about marriage date. The problem here is a difference between the displayed date and the standard date. The display date is 28 Jun 1867 and the standard date is 28 Jun 1869. The time line is showing the standard date. Click on the edit icon (pencil) by the marriage information for Jorgen Stephensen and Dorthe Larsdatter and then edit the marriage event making the standard date and display date the same. You can do this by removing the displayed at, even if correct, and retyping it. When the standard dates comes up, select it to make them both the same. See the link for more detailed instructions.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-enter-dates-and-places-into-family-tree

Wayne M Norton

I didn't think to check if the marriage details entered were standardised.

It's now fixed

Thank you kindly Wayland :)

Gordon Collett

Just to correct some terminology: The marriage date and marriage place were standardized. Otherwise there would have been a clear notice on the Details page that they were not. The problem was that the displayed data was standardized incorrectly and that needed to be fixed.

This happens most commonly when someone corrects an existing date or place but does not proof-read the linked standard to see if it needs to be updated as well.

Gordon Collett

Just for completeness, let me mention that as far as I know, there are three places where the standard which is linked to the displayed data is shown rather than the displayed data the the user intends to use as the most correct version of the data. These are:

• The top banner.
• The Timeline.
• The Merge screen.

The timeline is a great place to check if user entered place names are linked to the correct reference value (aka standardized version) because you can see at a glance if all the map pins, which are based on the reference value, on the the expected spots on the map.

Wayne M Norton

Interesting... By alternate details that sit in the background in one area such as the Vitals/Family Members and then show up in the Timeline area can make things confusing.

For instance, in this case, I have been helping out an overseas friend populate and fix some branches in her section of the tree. The marriage had already been entered, and since I don't really use the timeline function, I hadn't noticed the alternate marriage date/ place until she kindly pointed it out.

But now I can use this FamilyTree display inconsistency to check data inconsistencies more easily. .. The more you know - thank you Gordan.

Alan E. Brown

Another quick way to see the standard is to hover your mouse over the date (or place). Then you will see a little popup box that contains the standard value. It looks something like this (in the first example I hovered over the date, and in the second the place):

Gordon Collett

The other way to look at both values quickly is to click anywhere in the grey area that appears when in the data box but not on the pencil:

And if by now you are wondering what this double data system is all about, I go into painful detail about in my presentation here: https://youtu.be/qLa5PC4RPPk

This is one of the most powerful, useful, elegant, and misunderstood features of Family Tree.

Wayne M Norton

Thank you Alan for the hover-over hint.

Thank you again, Gordan - your video covers every possibility of the Place name usage on FamilySearch.

Just when I thought I was quite good at Place name usage, it turns out that I was scratching the surface 😊