Change My Husband to Ex-Husband

Carol Joy Stevens

My ex-husband is still appearing as my husband on my family tree. How do I correct that?

Jack Hern

All Living entries into the FamilySearch FamilyTree are viewable Only to the login that created them.

You can do two things:

• If no children are entered in under the two of you; you can delete the entry entirely. It will effect nothing anywhere on the site or to others.
• If you do have children listed, you can edit the marriage relationship, and remove the husband; the children will still show under you, individually, without the father. Again, only your login will see this, and only your login will see the living children entries with the details you have added.

maryellenstevensbarnes1

You might be able to add that information under Event or Fact but again, as @Jack Hern states All Living entries into the FamilySearch FamilyTree are viewable Only to the login that created them. However, the information will be useful to your descendants in terms of medical info and parentage and you need Not state any details about how and why the divorce came to happen.

Gordon Collett

Genealogy is the history of families. Please don't take this wrong or consider me as unfeeling. I realized that there are times when trying to erase history as part of coping with traumatic experiences seems like the best path forward. However, erasing history does not remove the fact that historical events occurred. What would you do if this did not concern you but rather great-great-great-grandparents of yours that got divorced? You would leave both of them in the tree as a couple, you would leave yourself as a descendent of that couple, and simply add a divorce date as a couple event.

Feel free to add a document that discusses the associated events, marked private for now if there are legal or social reasons for doing so, as a cathartic exercise. This will save your great-grandchildren a lot of research time when they stumble across the fact of this former marriage and try to figure out who he was and what happened.

However, if psychologically you just can't stand to see his name every time you open Family Tree. Then as Jack stated, just delete him using the Delete Person link in the Tools section of the right hand column.

Nyx773

@Jack Hern @maryellenstevensbarnes1 @Gordon Collett
I do not see anywhere in the original post that they want to delete their ex-husband’s profile or even detach it from their tree. I read it as only a desire to have the relationship marked correctly.

@Carol Joy Stevens
One of the quirks of FamilySearch is that divorces and annulments are not readily visible.
I suggest doing both of following 2 actions to indicate this:

1) Add a “Custom Event” in the “Event” section. This makes it quite visible.
Example:

2) Create an entry in the “Family Members” section. Which will bury the information, but is the correct area to note the divorce or annulment.
Instructions and info:

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

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

Example: