Bad Behavior - VERY Bad
So here I am FS, working in my group tree, updating family… and here I
come upon a couple, one dead with record, and his spouse listed as
deceased but with no record. You preach to change them to LIVING until
proven deceased. OK, fine. So I open the spouse in a new tab, and I
see I've been automatically changed from my group tree to the FS tree.
I change them from deceased to LIVING, and they disappear to everyone
else, except ME! Whopppe - I go back to the tab I left from, my group
tree view. I click refresh. and NOW the spouse is invisible to ME -
EXACTLY the opposite of what I was trying to do - THIS behavior is
absolute garbage, FS - what the heck are you
doing?????????????????????????????????
Best Answers
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If I understand correctly, you are using a Family Group Tree (FGT). When you mark a deceased person as living, if you were the only contributor to that person, they will immediately be marked as living. If there was more than one contributor, then a Support technician will review the situation; then if the change is approved, that person will be marked as living. In either case, whenever a deceased person profile in the public part of Family Tree is marked as living, if you were the original creator of the profile, then you will become the only person who can see that profile, because this process always results in the profile being moved to your private space.
I can certainly understand that in your particular situation you might hope that a profile marked as living would be moved directly to the FGT, but that is not how it has ever worked. I presume that this is done for privacy reasons. Moving a living person from your private space to the FGT should be a deliberate action, where you carefully consider whether it is appropriate to expose information about a living person to the group. As it says in the help article How do I add new people to a family group tree?, "Contributors have the responsibility to make sure that they have the rights and permission to share information within the group, including the personal information of other living individuals."
If you want to copy every profile for a living person in your private space (labeled "FamilySearch Tree" in the context of Family Group Trees), there is a way to Copy All:
- Click on your picture in the upper right corner of most FamilySearch pages, then choose Family Groups
- Click on the group you want to work with
- Under "Group and Tree Settings" click on "+ Copy from FamilySearch Tree"
- In the upper right corner, click "COPY ALL"
- Follow the prompts
This option should be used carefully, since it is certainly possible that you have living person profiles in your private space that it would not be appropriate to copy to the FGT. But used with care, this option can be a huge time saver if you need to move a lot of profiles at once.
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My opinion, but Family Tree is not the best place to maintain "living" individuals. One might consider a "third party" software package such as Ancestral Quest or Roots Magic.
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Answers
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I meticulously chaged all of the 99 year old peop[le in my tree WITHOUT an actual death record, to LIVING, like FS asks.. i did this because i need to share this with a very large family group… I also did hundreds of hours of obituary reading, and adding those older but still kicking family members, because we are going to update a hundred year old published genealogy with updated decents, and we need people to verify the correctness, and decide which younger family to include.
I NOW find, after working for HUNDREDS of hours, barely making a dent, that those [deleted] people are not showing up in my GROUP tree, the one supposedly for LIVING people, that I made specifically for the purpose, while only I can see these living people when viewing the WORLD tree from MY [deleted] account!!!!!!!!0 -
I need to make edits to living and dead status on the fly editing, but the tree keeps switching back and forth . . [comment deleted for code of conduct issue]
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@CaptMul I'm sorry you are having problems with your User Tree. You should be able to invite contributors to the Private Tree with living people and give them access. Once you are in the User Tree, go to Tree Settings & Controls > Privacy Settings
NOTE: Your posts have been edited for inappropriate wording. While these may not "technically" be swear words, they do not convey the family atmosphere we strive for. Please limit your comments to constructive conversation.
If you are still having issues with your account, please let me know, and I can have someone more knowledgeable with User Trees give more detailed advice.
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Thanks Alan, no I mainly work from the main FT, but needed to add KNOWN living people, for just this ONE 3rd great grandfather, who I want to share with other relatives that I am trying to convince that they need to work on familysearch and not just ancestry.com. I cannot share my full tree on ancestry bc it is far too experimental, and is my entire tree. I don't want to make a seperate tree for it either, as I long ago, started using their green leaf hints to represent persons who I had already completed research on. I went through everyone to where a green leaf on someone meant a new hint. Ancestry is flawed in that if i make a seperate tree for just this branch, even with vitals, using that branch previously synced with FamilyTeeMaker… if I reup that branch, ancestry put 25 hints on them AGAIN.
Blah blah, anyway, let me document more carefully what is happening, so maybe you/y'all can recommend a better way to work.
Thanks, I'll proceed today.0 -
So over the past week, i changed 25 people from living to deceased, using records with dates. There were also 25 people I changed from deceased to living, like insisted on by FS, even though they would be in their nineties, and are listed as deceased on ancestry, though with no record.
I also added over a hundred Living people, found IN the "resources" of their parents and even grandparents. After doing that, more hints popped for them, spouses children, so i added them too, etc etc…
I do not switch to my group tree because I am NEVER working on just LIVING or deceased people - there is so MUCH that needs to be constantly corrected and updated - DEAD and maybe LIVING…
I now find that i cannot see those living people in MY GROUP, I made to share with others, and I apparently have to make these massively time consuming edits over again?????? And yes, I am talking time consuming, as i do noit just attach said person from someone's obituary, but i try to attach EVERYONE, MANY of whom are in laws that ARE NOT in my tree…
Is that the case??????0 -
"Moving a living person from your private space to the FGT should be a
deliberate action, where you carefully consider whether it is
appropriate to expose information about a living person to the group"
I don't understand the above comment?
These persons are pesumably LIVING, FamilySearch is the one providing that information, thus I add them as Living until proven otherwise… There is NO decision to move them. That is where FamilySearch says they belong!0 -
If someone's 5 year old grandaughter is listed in an obit, and that information is in "sources", it is familysearch that has provided that information, and souce linker has even made a place for them in FT, although that would only be visible to the adder, IF listed as living…
Don't blame it on me, FS!-2 -
"If you want to copy every profile for a living person in your private
space (labeled "FamilySearch Tree" in the context of Family Group
Trees), there is a way to Copy All:- Click on your picture in the upper right corner of most FamilySearch pages, then choose Family Groups
- Click on the group you want to work with
- Under "Group and Tree Settings" click on "+ Copy from FamilySearch Tree"
- In the upper right corner, click "COPY ALL"
- Follow the prompts"
That did it, Alan, than you! I am only adding publicly available information.
I do see that it now confuses FS itself, in the FS public tree, as FS is now throwing up notices for those living people I also see in the FS tree saying they are duplicates to those now in my group tree.
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So while when I am in the group tree, IF i make one STUUUUUUPID STUPID stupid edit to an already marked deceased person (like that better FS censor!) the system freaks the HECK out, freezes up, returns a million errors, and when i finally get refreshed and back on track, I find, without notifying NOR asking, that it has switched me to the stupid FS tree. So now if I proceed working on LIVING people, I am unknowingly adding those and they will NOT be available in my group tree.
I don't think i allowed you to switch my trees family **** search!!!!!!!!! this is ABSOLUTELY stupid.-2 -
Ohhhhhhh GREAT - theres STILL all kinds of source attachment problems this rigamarole about LIVING versus dead creates across trees - what a MESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, FAMILY SEARCH - DO SOMETHING - stop tip toeing about PUBLIC RECORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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FIX YOUR SYSTEM FAMILY SEARCH - ITS BROKEN AND YOU PRESENT AS THOUGH YOU ARE PERFECT - STOP PROVIDING A BROKEN SYSTEM!@
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So here I am FS, working in my group tree, updating family… and here I come upon a couple, one dead with record, and his spouse listed as deceased but with no record. You preach to change them to LIVING until proven deceased. OK, fine. So I open the spouse in a new tab, and I see I've been automatically changed from my group tree toi the FS tree. I change them from deceased to LIVING, and they disappear to everyone else, except ME! Whopppe - I go back to the tab I left from, my group tree view. I click refresh. and NOW the spouse is invisible to ME - EXACTLY the opposite of what I was trying to do - THIS behavior is absolute garbage, FS - what the heck are you doing?????????????????????????????????
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I am continuing to work here - on LIVING to DEAD, and DEAD to LIVING - this is PURE NONSENCE with five preceding very descriptive adjectives that y'all do not like to be used…
YOU need to add a feature so people can lock into the tree that they WANT to be in!!
Check my edits - half of that is for the communinity - y'all already won't give me certain editing capabalities based on religion, and that is offensive.-1 -
So the LIVING person now in question is gone from my group tree when i change, like preached, to LIVING - NOT only that, when I add him back to that tree as a living person, now i have to TRY to add him back to the 20 sources that he belongs to, in a freaking out source linker, only the different seperated version for this LIVING version of him - highly inefficient
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A lot of questions are being raised in this discussion, so I’d like to start by addressing the two most common ones: “How do I add living relatives to my tree?” and “Why can’t I see my spouse or in‑laws in Family Tree?”
FamilySearch’s system is working as designed.
Only the specific user account that creates a living person’s profile can see, search, or edit it. To protect strict personal privacy, any profile marked “Living” is automatically placed in that user’s Private Space.This means that if five different relatives each add the same living person, FamilySearch creates five separate, private, unlinked records. They do not merge or become visible to one another until a death date is added.
To connect your branch to the shared public tree, you must create your own placeholder profiles for your living spouse, children, and in‑laws. Once you reach a deceased ancestor, your line will automatically link into the global tree.
If you are trying to locate the living people you personally created, go to:Family Tree → My Contributions → Private People
This will show the full list of living profiles in your Private Space.Regarding your comment: “y’all already won’t give me certain editing capabilities based on religion, and that is offensive.”
Could you explain what specific editing restrictions you are referring to? FamilySearch does not limit general editing rights based on religious affiliation, so more detail will help us understand your concern and address it accurately.I also appreciate the points being raised about the challenges of managing living relatives across different accounts. It can feel confusing, but the privacy protections are intentional and important. At the same time, I want to gently remind everyone to keep our tone courteous. Words like “garbage” can come across more harshly than intended and may discourage others from participating.
As we continue the conversation, let’s keep our space constructive and civil. Strong opinions are absolutely welcome, but respectful phrasing ensures that everyone feels comfortable contributing as we work together to strengthen the tree. Thank you for helping maintain a positive and collaborative community environment.
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I agree with @fnulnu1999. I my early days of using Family Tree, the comments made by a member of the senior management team suggested Family Tree was primarily a database in which to record profiles of deceased individuals.
I accept attitudes have changed significantly over the last ten years and features have been introduced to actively encourage collaboration (especially between family members) regarding living individuals.
Unfortunately, this has associated negative issues - as I believe has been illustrated in recent discussions here in Community.
The addition of certain collections (involving more recent census records, births and marriages and obituaries that name living persons, too) has left it quite easy for users to add profiles with a Deceased status, when a considerable number of these now represent persons who are very much alive.
As I do not find Family Tree Groups of interest to my research methods (only having a wish to collaborate with others on an ad hoc basis) I have not examined if this feature could (inadvertently) have a negative impact on FamilySearch privacy rules. However, I think we are entitled to be confused about what we can make public within Family Tree about the living, especially when it is currently made so easy to add living individuals as deceased during certain processes, though admittedly not in others.
(Incidentally, I have added just three individuals to Family Tree who are still living: all born in the 1930s and whose siblings are known to be deceased and/or born over 110 years ago. Only fair to point that out, as it reflects my personal attitude in adding details of the living to the Tree, even though I respect the rights of others to act otherwise.)
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It would be helpful to be clear on how Family Tree deals with deceased people as opposed to living people in the FamilySearch Tree versus a Family Group Tree. I think some of your frustration could be alleviated with a clear understanding of how those things interact.
Foundational Principles for Family Tree and Family Group Trees
Family Tree contains profiles for over 1 billion deceased persons. These deceased persons are almost all (the exceptions would be a distraction for this conversation) public profiles that every FamilySearch user can see.
Every user has a small number of living persons in their private space, meaning the place where their living person profiles are stored. Those living person profiles are visible only to that user. When that user is looking at the tree called "FamilySearch Tree" they see that small set of living persons plus the billion+ public deceased persons. Those living persons may be related to some of those other living persons or possibly to some of the public deceased persons. But those relationships involving living persons are also in the private space, visible only to that user.
If you participate in a Family Group Tree (FGT), then you will have shared access to a small number of living person profiles that have been copied into the FGT or created in the FGT by you or any other member of the associated Family Group. These living person profiles are visible only to members of the group. When you look at that FGT, you will see that small set of living persons in the FGT plus the billion+ public deceased persons. Similar to the FS Tree, relationships involving living persons in the FGT are visible only to members of the Family Group.
It's very important to be clear on the point that those billion+ public deceased persons that you see in the FGT are exactly the same person profiles that you are looking at when you are looking at the FamilySearch Tree. So the FGT and the FS Tree are 99.9999% the same — they differ only in the small number of living persons in each. Any change you make to any of the public deceased persons when viewing the FGT will be reflected in the FS Tree, and vice versa, because they are the exact same profiles.
Living profiles, however, are distinct between the FGT and the FS Tree. You (or some other group member) may have started a living profile in the FGT by copying a living profile from your FS Tree, but once they are copied, they are distinct profiles with different IDs — nothing you do to one living profile in the FGT will affect the corresponding living profile in FS Tree (or vice versa).
Those are the foundational principles for the FamilySearch Tree and Family Group Trees. I'll explain some of the practical consequences of those principles in my next comment.
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With a clear understanding of the foundational principles for Family Group Trees I explained in my previous comment, you can now see what is happening when you change a person from deceased to living. As I explained in a comment to you in your other thread on this topic, when a person is changed from deceased to living, they are placed in your private space, which you see when you are viewing the FS Tree.
In your original post you said: "I change them from deceased to LIVING, and they disappear to everyone
else, except ME!" Yes, that's correct. As I said in the previous paragraph, by changing them to living, you put them in your private space. They are no longer among the billion+ public deceased profiles. All such living profiles are visible only to you. So far, so good.Then you said, "I go back to the tab I left from, my group tree view. I click refresh. and NOW the spouse is invisible to ME." To be clear, it's more accurate to say that "the spouse is now invisible to my FGT." When you marked that person as living, they moved into your private space, which is not visible to that FGT (but you can still see that profile in your FS Tree). So it is entirely expected that that profile would disappear from your FGT, since it is no longer part of the billion+ public deceased profiles that form 99.9999% of your FGT.
Speaking of the newly private profile becoming invisible to the FGT, you said that is "EXACTLY the opposite of what I was trying to do." I would word that situation more mildly. It's not the opposite, but rather is a step along the way to what you are trying to do. If you would like to copy that newly private profile from your FS Tree to the FGT, you are welcome to do so. That would then make that copy of that living person profile visible in your FGT. And that is the result you are trying to accomplish.
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Oh, and one other helpful hint:
If you'd like to see the list of living profiles in your FGT or the FS Tree, use the Person List option in the Family Tree menu:
That will show you the living profiles in the FS Tree when you have the FamilySearch Tree selected; for your FGT, use the dropdown on the left side (outlined in red) and choose your FGT. Then the Person List will show the living profiles in your FGT.
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I explained the foundational principles for FGTs in a different thread. Once you have read that explanation, I think you'll understand my comment above. If not, please help me understand what is still confusing and I'll try to help.
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This comment got posted in two threads. I answered your question in a comment in the other thread.
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NO, the correct answer is to click on your profile, and then your family groups, and then on the group you want, and then "copy from family search tree" etc - you know what next - that sir is the better answer, (part of this discussion removed) .
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I wish I had the public obituary of a person I am adding to the family tree as deceased. It says "Joe was expecting his very first grandchild, Jacob Matthew, at the end of February…"
That birth announcemt was published at the end of February. I added Jacob Matthew as a child of Joe's daughter, as a Living person in my ongoing cousin tree that I am building. That is a PUBLIC record. I am adding nothing else. Is that appropriate??0 -
Why do you assume that I have a clear understanding from your explanation? It actually wasn't clear at all. The whole Living and Dead rigamarole is completely confounding - I am only talking about publicly available records, on LIVING persons, that YOU, familysearch, serve to users…
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"Any change you make to any of the public deceased persons when viewing the FGT will be reflected in the FS Tree, and vice versa"
Yes, right. What i was saying though is that IF/When I am working in my group tree, say ensuring that anyone without a death record is NOT marked as deceased, any changes I make to a living person is fine, or deceased to living is fine too, BUUUUT if I so much as make a spelling correction to a deceased profile, I get switched back into the FS tree, and it takes me to the ROOT of my FS tree instead of to the profile or tree position of said person, hich is also not desired but better than root? Do you understand me? I do not understand FS.
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@CaptMul
Visiting a staffed FamilySearch Center (not affiliate library) may be of great use.
They should be able to help with navigation and clear up misconceptions.
Regarding your other post . . .
It is no longer unusual for people to live past the age of 100 - currently there is well over 1/2 million people worldwide.
The FS rule is that without proof of death, people are to be assumed to still be living for 110 years from their date of birth, not 99, per this article:
Sidenote Opinion:
Since the oldest person on record lived to be 122, and the current oldest person alive is 116, the threshold should be increased above 110.0 -
Ha! Right, After checking their hours, open at 6, I drove ten miles out there, only to find the entire facilities, church, library, etc, completely deserted. Turns out they open at 6PM - OK no problem…BUT not anymore! Now it's flex hours, but usually twice per week for three hours. I can not do that.
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Meaning, IF I go, I's want to go for the entire day, bc it's a production getting out there. A three hour day ruins an entire day. I can't do THAT.
I could though volunteer to staff the library one day per week, if they simply need a body with a brain, and if they wouldn't require a member of the LDS faith… I AM though a believer…-1
