Why is the "view relationship" broken?
The title pretty much says it all, but the "view relationship" button hasn't worked for the past 2-3 weeks. I've tested it almost everyday, with people very close on the tree (my parents and siblings), to dead people but also close (grandparents), and what could be thought of as the furthest away possible (everywhere that is not Europe or America for me)
I've done things like reset cookies, tried other accounts, tried other browsers, tried other devices, turned off and on computer, logged in and out. It's has just not worked!
Is this happening to anyone else? Has FamilySearch said something on the topic? Has anyone found any solutions? And are there any other sites or extensions that could mimic the "view relationship button"?
Answers
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"View Relationship" is working for me.
In answer to your last question:
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@Colinco Could you share what you mean by "hasn't worked"? Does the relationship view not display when you click the View Relationship button? Do you see some sort of error message? Are you being told that a person is not related, but you think that they are?
People will be better able to help you if you provide some specifics about what you expect to see and what you are actually seeing.
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It won't show me the relationship between two people. Even between people I know are related (like parents, grandparents, siblings)
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It's not designed to show the relationship between two people -- it only shows how you are related to another person in Family Tree. There is a button near the top of a person's profile page labeled VIEW RELATIONSHIP. That will show how that person is related to you.
There's no way in that user interface to specify yet another person in Family Tree to see how that other person is related to the person whose profile you are viewing.
If that's the capability you are hoping for, then @Nyx773 provided a helpful link to an affiliated website that can show you that. But you won't find it with FamilySearch -- not because anything isn't working, but simply because such a capability has never been implemented.
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@Colinco
Sometimes the view relationship may appear not to work - I often see “relationship unknown”. This message may appear because there is no direct link between you and the person, or perhaps you are connected by marriage. Sometimes the person is just too far back in the line to show relationship (before 1500). Occasionally, FamilySearch needs more data to connect you- the information in the tree may not be complete. You may also want to check in your settings to be sure that you have relationship viewing enabled. For the most part, I really love the view relationship button and find that it works quite well. Often, I have a better idea of how the families in my tree are connected. I would also suggest reading a help article about the view relationship button. Please keep trying, it’s a great resource!!!
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I’m experiencing the same issue. The “View Relationship” button hasn’t been working for me for the past few weeks despite trying different browsers, devices, and accounts. It seems like a system-side problem rather than a user error. Has anyone heard an official update from FamilySearch or found a reliable workaround?
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@cody85749 I’ve tested the feature several times on my end, and it’s working normally. In most cases, when it doesn’t work for someone else, it’s because FamilySearch can’t find a complete relationship path between them and the person they’re viewing. Even one missing or incorrect link—like a parent not attached, a duplicate record, or a branch that isn’t actually connected—will break the relationship view.
I’ve run into this myself when I thought someone was in my direct line, only to discover later that the connection wasn’t actually there, or a link was missing. Once the relationship path is complete, the feature usually works as expected.
A few common causes:
- A parent or grandparent is missing in the chain
- Someone is attached to the wrong parents
- A duplicate profile exists and the system is following the wrong branch
- A spouse or child is linked, but the connecting parent is not
- The other person is working on a profile that isn’t actually in their direct line
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@cody85749 Could you please clarify what you mean? There's clearly not a system-side problem, at least not an obvious one, since almost everyone reports that View Relationship works just fine. You said you're experiencing the same issue, but as near as I can tell @Colinco was not having any problem except for hoping that FamilySearch had a feature (showing the relationship between two selected persons in Family Tree) that has not been implemented.
Here are some questions that might help you clarify what you are seeing: Does the relationship view not display when you click the View Relationship button? Where are you clicking the View Relationship button — on a person profile, for another contributor's contact card, or somewhere else? Do you see some sort of error message? Are you being told that a person is not related, but you think that they are? Do you experience this for many different person profiles, or is it limited to a small set of problematic profiles?
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Thanks for the clarification — that helps narrow things down.
In my case, the issue isn’t that the View Relationship button fails to load or throws an error. It’s more that on certain profiles, the system either shows no relationship or can’t determine a path even though I believe one exists.
From what I’ve seen, this usually happens when:
- A parent/ancestor link is missing somewhere in the chain
- There’s a duplicate profile and the system follows the wrong branch
- A connection looks correct visually but isn’t actually attached in the tree
So the feature itself seems to work fine overall — it’s just inconsistent on specific profiles where the relationship path may be incomplete or incorrectly structured.
To answer your questions directly:
- The relationship view does open when I click the button.
- I’m usually clicking it from a person profile.
- No clear error message appears — it just fails to show a relationship.
- The issue seems limited to a smaller set of profiles rather than happening everywhere.
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@cody85749 Thank you for those clarifications. That's very helpful.
The View Relationship feature can only show relationships using the current data in Family Tree following the specific rules for relationships chosen by FamilySearch. For details, see the help article How does the relationship viewer determine how I am related to someone?
People sometimes hope that relationships will be shown in ways that seem close to them, but don't follow the basic rule explained in that article of finding a common ancestor. For example, I know the brother of my daughter-in-law well, but because we don't share a common ancestor, View Relationship will not show a relationship between us. Make sure that the relationships that you expect to be shown in View Relationship actually exist in Family Tree and follow the rules.
Some feedback on your particular cases:
- If "a parent/ancestor link is missing somewhere in the chain," then that's something you need to research and fix. The View Relationship feature can only work with the relationships that are actually present in Family Tree.
- "There’s a duplicate profile and the system follows the wrong branch." The View Relationship feature will always find the shortest path, using the rules detailed in the linked article. The presence of an alternate branch may lead to a relationship being shown that is not your preference, but only because it is shorter. The presence of multiple branches will never lead to no relationship being shown when one does exist through other branches. That said, the existence of duplicate profiles can certainly lead to no relationship being shown if a duplicate profile is connected to your family, but there's a much better profile that connects to other profiles, but that better profile is not actually connected to your family. In that case, it's important to make sure that the profiles are truly duplicates, then merge them. That will often open up a large set of new relationships that will then be shown in the View Relationship feature.
- "A connection looks correct visually but isn’t actually attached in the tree." Again, you need to do the research an add or update relationships so that the relationships in the Family Tree are correct.
It sounds to me like you have identified some specific situations in Family Tree that you can work on to make sure that you see the relationships you hope to view. By adding missing relationships and merging duplicate profiles, you should be able to have much better experiences soon with View Relationship. I wish you well in your research!
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Thanks for the detailed explanation — that really clarifies how the View Relationship feature works within FamilySearch.
It makes sense that the system strictly follows the shortest path to a common ancestor and relies entirely on the existing tree structure. I hadn’t fully considered how duplicate profiles or missing links could completely block a relationship from appearing, even if it “looks” connected visually.
I’ll review the branches more carefully, check for unmerged duplicates, and verify that all parent-child links are properly attached. Appreciate the guidance — this gives me a clearer direction for cleaning up the tree.
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