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View Relationship: How do I exclude my spouse?

David F. Eldredge
David F. Eldredge ✭
October 9, 2023 edited September 26, 2024 in Family Tree

I simply want to see if how I might be related to some of my wife's ancestors, but when I click on "View Relationship" It defaults to show I am related via my spouse. Is there a way to prevent that?

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Best Answers

  • Julia Szent-Györgyi
    Julia Szent-Györgyi ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 9, 2023 Answer ✓

    On FS, your spouse will only be skipped if there's a shorter path that way -- in other words, never.

    On RelativeFinder (https://www.relativefinder.org/#/start), on the other hand, if your spouse is living, then none of the relationship paths will include her, because that site uses FS's Family Tree, but doesn't "see" your private space.

    2
  • Alan E. Brown
    Alan E. Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 9, 2023 Answer ✓

    @David F. Eldredge You can use the Connect menu item (https://relativefinder.org/#/connect) to find your relationship to any person in Family Tree (as well as other options, such as the relationship between any two deceased persons).

    1

Answers

  • Alan E. Brown
    Alan E. Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 9, 2023

    @Julia Szent-Györgyi It's true that RelativeFinder doesn't find relationships paths through your spouse, and thus it is a particularly useful tool for those who want to exclude a spouse in finding relationships.

    But that choice to exclude spousal relationships has nothing to do with whether RelativeFinder can "see" your private space. It most definitely can see your private space, as is clear from the fact that it will include living parents, grandparents, etc., in the relationship paths it shows.

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  • David F. Eldredge
    David F. Eldredge ✭
    October 9, 2023

    I might be doing something wrong, but https://www.relativefinder.org/#/home is only bringing up famous people. When typing in my own grandfather, it does not bring it up. 🤔

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  • David F. Eldredge
    David F. Eldredge ✭
    October 9, 2023

    Thank you! It looks like I am related to both of my wife's grandfathers, way back though! LOL 10th & 11th cousins. But not the grandmother's surprisingly, at least nothing connects as of today.

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  • David F. Eldredge
    David F. Eldredge ✭
    October 9, 2023

    Oh, and one of her grandfather's is a Brown. KWCW-TC1 We might be related, and you more so to my wife.

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  • Julia Szent-Györgyi
    Julia Szent-Györgyi ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 9, 2023

    @Alan E. Brown, hmm. I came to that conclusion about RelativeFinder and private spaces because not only did it fail to find any relationships involving my spouse, it also failed to find anything through my living parent. Looking at it now, I'm thinking that either they've changed something since then (it was a few years ago), or it was the result of some other error, because now it finds my relationship to a great-uncle, but not to said great-uncle's mother-in-law, regardless of which parent's side they're on.

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  • Gail Swihart Watson
    Gail Swihart Watson ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 10, 2023

    @Julia Szent-Györgyi I just found several relationships which go through my living spouse and they all link me to my spouse first and then go back in time.

    What I don't see is a relationship that connects through in-laws of my spouse or, ie, through 2 marriages. In looking at the relationship between me and the grandfather of the husband of my husband's sister (got that?), it did not show me the quick and dirty relationship through 2 marriages, it showed me I was a 7th cousin 5 times removed, which is not the closest relationship.

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  • Alan E. Brown
    Alan E. Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 10, 2023

    @Gail Swihart Watson

    The relationship algorithm only uses a spousal relationship at the very beginning or the very end. So you (or your spouse) will share a common ancestor with the person (or the person's spouse).

    But spousal relationships are not used in any other way to calculate relationships. So my relationship to my daughter-in-law's father, for example, would have to find some common ancestor -- it would not go through my daughter-in-law.

    These relationships include all parent-child (adoptive, biological, etc.) and all couple (marriage or common-law) relationships. If the relationship is used to draw trees, it's used to calculate relationships.

    The relationships shown are the closest relationships that follow these rules, not the closest relationships you can find using other rules.

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