Father and son with the same ID

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: How do I merge my living granddaughter's two ID numbers?.

S Laswell

I have a father and son who somehow were given the same Family Search I.D. code (such as "A1B2-AB3"). Is there a way to change this code/number for one of them without deleting and then re-entering data?

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@S Laswell, if they have the same profile ID, then they're the same profile. I suspect that you must be misinterpreting what you're seeing, because in my experience, the system will not allow a profile to have a relationship with itself, that is, it is not possible for a profile to appear as both father and son.

What can happen — especially when dealing with several generations of exactly the same name — is for a profile to end up as its own grandparent or grandchild. The way to fix that is to remove the incorrect parent-child relationship. Here are some relevant Help Center articles on the topic:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-solve-a-looping-pedigree-in-family-tree

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/a-person-in-family-tree-has-the-wrong-spouse

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-correct-parent-child-relationships-in-family-tree.