deleting a tree
I have a patron that her name connected to a family tree has so many errors in the names all added that it will take hundreds of hours to begin making a dent in this tree for corrections. My suggestion was to delete her relationship with this family tree and then she can add in the correct parents and grandparents to her. Is this the best way to deal with this problem? She wanted to know if she could just delete the whole tree, but explained that that wasn't possible because too many names and people were involved with this tree.
Answers
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While breaking the connection and starting over may be the quickest way for the patron, it is not necessarily the best solution for the FamilySearch Family Tree. Those profiles will still be in the FSFT, with incorrect connections, possibly leading other researchers astray.
At some point, someone will need to make those corrections. Genealogy is not a quick-fix project. For many, it's a lifetime of work.
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You say:
"She wanted to know if she could just delete the whole tree, but explained that that wasn't possible because too many names and people were involved with this tree."
The reason individuals / branches cannot be deleted from the tree is that the only conditions by which an individual can be deleted is where the user who created the profile (ID) wishes to do so - even then, no other user can have carried out work there, otherwise the profile remains, without the option to delete. The only possibility of "deletion" applying to most of the profiles added to Family Tree is where the individual is merged with another profile / ID. FamilySearch's use of the word "delete" is rather misleading in those circumstances, as the merged ID is not truly deleted, as it can be "unmerged" or restored.
Work of the kind that appears to be required here can be quite daunting - and very difficult for an inexperienced user - but I agree with Âine that someone needs to do it, as - among other things - a whole lot of duplicates will be created if she "starts from scratch" and adds another branch (which includes her known relatives) to the tree. In any case, a distant cousin could then come along and merge all her newly created IDs with those she has recently encountered on the tree: meaning problem unresolved!
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Just to clarify my point over it being impossible to delete the majority of profiles that appear on Family Tree.
If you look at the Tools section (on any Details page) you will see the "option" to "Delete Person" - except that option is "greyed out"* on most pages, for the reason shown above (i.e., only the user who originally added the profile can delete it - and then only if no other user has made a contribution to it).
I looked at my previous comments again this morning and feel I did not make the issue clear. Again, in short, "deleting a tree" is rarely an option when trying to clear up a mess in Family Tree.
( * The link below the unavailable Delete Person option leads to the helpful article at https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/why-cant-i-delete-this-person-in-family-tree )
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One thing you should review with the patron since what she is seeing has so many errors, is to carefully look at her parents, and her grandparents to see if potentially the problem is that she is not looking at her relatives at all. For example, if she or another user found a profile for one of her "grandparents" that was not her grandparent at all but used it anyway because the name and dates were close, she may find that she does not have many errors, but just one.
This is a common problem when users do not understand that Family Tree is a universal tree and that there are, for example, hundreds of profiles for Mary Smith born 1904 in New York. When users think that what they are seeing is just their relatives, they tend to grab the first Mary Smith born 1904 in New York they see and assume it must be their grandmother. Then can't understand why their pedigree chart shows generations of "errors."
Another thing you did not mention is exactly where this user is running into problems. Is it with her great-grandparents or with her "family" living in the 1100's?
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And, to take the discussion a step further, if the patron is comfortable joining us here in the Community, we can help her find the best regional research group to support her efforts. Many hands make light work.
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