Removing a person from your family tree

Carly Palmore

Hello. I am newer to creating the online family tree. In one of my lines that was automatically generated from info I had previously typed, my ancestor had been married more than once. The incorrect wife was added to my tree. I would like her removed so I can add the appropriate one. It wasn't giving me an option to delete the person, so I began 'editing' the information. I now see this is not the correct thing I should have done. Can anyone help?

Mark McKenzie_1

@Carly Palmore Sounds like it might be an easy enough repair, but we'll need to see what's up. Can you provide the PID? It is a group of numbers/letters next to the birth/death dates directly under the name

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@Carly Palmore, based on what you wrote, I'm not sure you've fully absorbed a very basic underlying fact about the collaborative Tree on Family Search: you do not have your own, individual tree here. None of us do. We all work on exactly the same tree. The (lofty and distant) goal here is one and only one profile per deceased person.

In this collaborative environment, if you encounter a profile that's not for the person you expect or want, you don't change the person's identity. You check and edit the relationships, adding a new profile if the person you want doesn't already have one. (And yes, it's always a good idea to check for an existing profile.)

If someone was married more than once, you add all the spouses. You can set which spouse it shows you in chart views (which can usually only show one spouse at a time) using the "Set Preferred" option, found at the top left of the Family Members section of the relevant profile Details pages. (Likewise for multiple parents, such as adoptive versus biological.)

sc woz

@Carly Palmore

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-change-vital-information-in-family-tree

In Family Tree, you can correct the name, sex, or event information for a person, regardless of whether you added it.

Family Tree is an open, collaborative environment. Your change shows in a change history, along with your Contact ID and a means to contact you. Any user, including you, can reverse changes.

Before you start

• Focus on accuracy. Make changes that make the person's profile more correct.
• Be prepared to explain your changes, and, when possible, attach sources.
• Consider contacting the user who made the last change before you make a correction. To find contact information, click the user's name, and then click Chat.
• Other Family Tree users could be following this profile. (You can see how many are following when you make your correction.) Users who follow the profile receive a Family Tree notification when you make a change. Other users can contact you to discuss your change.