Deleting or correcting information
Please help. I have 3 generations with the same or similar name - Valentin, Valentine, Valentino, then there appears to be others. So the name has gone from father to son but also to cousins etc. There is some confusion, possibly caused by me, about which one is which and in trying to correct some issues I now have mixed generations with things like mother and daughter being the same person, and fathers having children at 90 years old. I have tried to delete several generations back to where I know it is correct but your system won't allow me to delete them from my tree. I have spent hours going round in circles trying to sort it out and getting nowhere. I don't know what the next steps are or where to get the help or information I need
Best Answers
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Maybe this is a case of good old-fashioned pencil and paper playing an important part in sorting out the confusion. Just go through each individual and, one by one, add known parents, spouses and children along with event dates. You could then add siblings and sort all these individuals into branches. After that, go back to the separate Details / Profile pages of your relatives and match the facts. I also find the Landscape view sometimes presents a much clearer picture, whereby you can easily spot the "impossible" (mother born after child, etc.).
Of course, this work is often far from straightforward and most of us encounter similar problems. However, if you can't work things out yourself you can always provide specific details here (ID references of the relatives causing the confusion) and no doubt someone will be able to untangle certain relationships and facts for you.
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Paul covered the basics of getting and keeping the people sorted, but for the actual mechanics, perhaps it'll help to take a step back and address your "my tree" comment.
The Family Tree on FamilySearch is a single collaborative tree. Nobody has a separate tree here; "my tree" doesn't exist. It's all our tree.
One of the consequences of this basic fact is that you can't just delete a profile and then recreate it elsewhere, like you would in an individual tree environment. You delete or change a profile's relationships instead. If we were doing this all physically, the individual-tree sites would be a bunch of whiteboards that people worked on separately (peering over each other's shoulders to copy the shared parts), while FamilySearch would be an arrangement of 3x5 cards on a large corkboard. To correct a relationship on a whiteboard, you get the eraser and the markers, same as you would to correct a birthdate. To correct a relationship on the corkboard, you move the thumbtack and card; you only need the pencil and eraser to correct a birthdate on a card.
Like nearly every genealogy program and site out there, FS's tree uses just two kinds of relationships: spouse/partner and parent-child. Editing them works fairly similarly: you find the appropriate "edit" (pencil) button, and then you use the correct "remove or replace" (trashcan) button. Here are a couple of relevant Help Center articles:
https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/a-person-in-family-tree-has-the-wrong-spouse
It can also be helpful to familiarize yourself with the Change Log (profile Details page -- Latest Changes box in right-hand column -- Show All). This can be a useful tool for reverting edits made in error; you don't need to dig up and re-type the information. You just need to find where it was originally entered and restore it. (This may take some scrolling and/or filtering in the change log.)
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To expand just a bit further, here are some pointers and step by step instructions:
1) Get a big mug of warm coco with marshmallows, a few of your favorite cookies, and a candy cane.
2) Curl up with a blanket and watch Kathryn Grant's excellent presentation: "Understanding Intended Identity" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZeqgY47zdA ) as many times as you need to until you fully understand it.
3) Do some gentle stretching or yoga.
4) Curl up with that blanket again and watch her other great presentations: "Mysteries of the Change Log Revealed" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4el095zUSO4) and "More Mysteries of the Change Log Revealed" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwYK_cO961s). They may be a little out of date by now but still have information it is vital to understand.
5) Understand that completing the repairs you need to make may be a several weeks project and needs to be done in an organized and controlled manner.
6) Understand that in this situation, then only constant on any record is the ID number and each ID number was originally created to represent one specific person. That ID really needs to be that original person.
7) Get a big stack of 3 X 5 index cards and some sharp pencils.
8) Be sure to use the correct relationship editing icon. If working to repair parent child relationships, take the viewpoint of the child. Go to the child's Family Tree page and only use the pencil next to the child's name where located under his or her parents:
That way you are working with just one child at a time.
If working to repair a couple relationship use the icon in the couple event box:
9) Pick one person to start on. Write the ID number on your first index card.
10) Go to the Change Log for that person and scroll to the very first entry to determine who that ID number is supposed to be. Make notes of the identifying information on your index card. Get to a thorough understanding of who this person is really supposed to be.
11) Filter the Change Log for merges:
Make an index card for each deleted person. Go to each deleted person and check the change log for each one to determine who that person was.
If the merge was correct, then let it stay and keep the index card in a pile with your starting person. If the merge was incorrect based on the original identity, then restore the deleted person and start a new pile.
11) After restoring all incorrect merges, carefully go through your starting person and remove any information on the record that came from an incorrect merge. Do this by having the restored person's page open in a separate window so you can compare the two records side by side. Restoring a record does put the deleted record back to the state it was in just prior to the merge. However restoring a deleted record does absolutely nothing to repair the surviving record. That has to be done manually.
12) Filter the Change Log for your starting person to check each piece of Vital Information in turn to look for bad editing:
If needed, click restore next to the correct value to get it back on the detail page if needed.
13) Now go to the Sources page. Evaluate each source to see if it really is for the person. Detach all that do not belong.
14) As you are making changes, you will see possible duplicates and hints come and go under Research Helps. Ignore all of them for now.
15) Make sure all information in the Other Information section is for the person. Remove any that is not.
16) Now turn to relationships. Make an index card with the ID for each parent, spouse, and child of your starting person so you don't lose any of them.
17) Evaluate each parent, spouse, and child to see if they really are in a correct relationship with your starting person. If so, let them stand. If not then check the change log to see if they were put in the relationship via a bad merge. If so, then reverse the merge. Only delete the relationship using the relationship editing pencil icon if the relationship was originally directly added.
(This can be confusing so let me explain farther.
If Sally was added as the wife of John Smith but she is not, delete the relationship. If Sally ended up as the wife of John Smith because her husband John Smith was merged with your John Smith who is not her husband, then separate the two John Smiths. Don't just lop off Sally so that she loses her correct husband John Smith.
Likewise, if Jim shows as a child of Henry Jones and Mary Evans, if he was added to them directly, just delete the relationship. But if his parents Henry James and Mary Smith were merged with Henry Jones and Mary Evans respectively, then reverse the merges so that Jim gets his real parents back.)
18) You should now have your starting person in good shape.
19) Pick an index card for a deleted person that you restored, if any, and repeat this process. Do this for each ID number restored out of your starting person.
20) Now one at a time take the index cards for each parent, spouse and child originally with a relationship to your starting person, whether they still are connected to that person or not. Repeat this process for that ID number.
21) Take your time, stay organized, and after you have evaluated, processed, and corrected each ID number you should have everyone back where they belong.
22) Now go to the Research Helps section for each ID you have on an index card and check for possible duplicates. If correct, merge them. If incorrect, dismiss them. Like with any hints. Attach all correct ones and mark as not a match any incorrect ones.
Good Luck. This is not has hard as it might appear at this point.
Post back here if you have any questions.
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WOW. Thanks to all for some great answers. All are helpful.
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