Deleting a family member off my family tree

Michelle21292

Hi, I'm new to this site. I am trying to remove someone off my tree. It is my paternal grandfather. My father was adopted by him and decided I would like to research my biological grandfathers side. when i get to Delete Person , it is grayed out. All I want to do is change it on my family tree, but cant figure out how to do so. Can anyone assist me or maybe a link that can show me how to do this?

Graham Buckell

You can only delete a record if you created it and no one else has contributed to it in the meantime.

I see no reason to remove it. Change the relationship to adopted and add another set of parents to your father. That way you have both.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

Hi @Michelle21292 and welcome.

Here is the Help Article explaining how to change a relationship in a family unit. https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-specify-biological-step-adopted-and-foster-relationships-in-family-tree

Best of luck with the research.

Gordon Collett

Welcome to the site! As another user, I hope you have a lot of fun here.

There is a basic, fundamental fact you need to be aware of. The Family Tree database is not an individual, personal database that you work on. It does not have individual trees like many sites. It is a universal tree that belongs to none of us and has as its goal to be a record of every person who has ever lived and to have just one database profile for each of them, including your paternal grandfather by adoption. He did exist. He should be in Family Tree and never deleted. We users are really just volunteers all working together to build FamilySearch's database of humanity.

Secondly, history is history and there is no need to delete history. Your father was adopted. That fact will never change and to have a full history of your family in Family Tree, that fact should be included. That is why family tree is designed so that any individual in the tree can have just as many parent child relationships as needed. Many people have various combinations of biological, step, adoptive, and foster relationships and they can all be recorded on their profiles.

So as suggested above, just add you father's biological parents to the database and leave his adoptive parents in place.

W D Samuelsen contact me please

Why deleting the relationship?

I have great grandmother who was adopted and I have no problem switching between her adoptive parents and her birth mother in the FamilyTree.

Michelle21292

Thank you all so much. These suggestions are helpful and Gordon your response about history was inciteful and honestly I was not in that mindset as adoptive father (my grandfather) was not a good man. But like you said we cant change history. Fortunately, I do have some info on bio dad as he was involved until my dad was 7 and bio died in a car accident. I did not realize I could add biological father to family tree also. Now to figure out how to do this. lol I am new to genealogy and now that the kids are grown, I want to devote time to my new hobby, plus watch my families ancestral story grow. Thank you all again. This is really fun!!

Gordon Collett

This help center article: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-add-a-parent-in-family-tree kind of explains how to add parents. It would be really easy to show if the ability to add images here would get fixed.

But here is a summary:

1. On your father's profile page scroll down to the Family Members section. This has two columns on the web version of FamilySearch, "Spouses and Children" and "Parents and Siblings"
2. At the very bottom of the "Parents and Siblings" column you will see a link that says "Add Parent."
3. Click that link and add your father's biological father.
4. After creating that profile, when you are on your father's page, you will see that inside the box under "Parents and Siblings" that contains your biological grandfather is a link that says "Add Spouse." Click there. If the adoptive grandfather married your biological grandfather's widow, then you can use the Add By ID tab to add her existing profile to that spot.

Sorry to hear the adoptive grandfather was not a good man. But we all have warts in our families here and there. You may want to do a bunch of research on him and his life and write a biography, containing both his flaws and strengths, to post on his profile to preserve and explain features of your father's life.

After you have added the new set of parents to your father, you can use the "Set Preferred" link just above the "Parents and Siblings" title to mark which set of your father's parents appears in pedigree charts.