Duplicate incomplete marriage record
I have a couple listed with their childrenin one record posting in Spouses and children. Below that there is asecond record missing the father but all the rest of the family is identical to the first record. I tried adding the father to the missing record but the system says That relationship already exists. How do I get rid of the duplicate incomplete record.
Best Answer
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Both of these methods can solve the problem but there is a simpler way:
- If the mother and the child have the same ID in both relationships, click on the little pencil beside the child's name where he is listed with only the mother then click remove the child from the relationship. The reason is "Duplicate relationship."
- If the child has 2 different IDs and the mother's is the same, merge the 2 records for the child.
- If the mother has 2 different IDs but the child has the same one, merge the records for the mother.
- If both have different IDS, merge the records for the mother then merge the records for the child.
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Answers
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Do not get rid of the duplicate incomplete marriage record. These are two different sources, not duplicates. One record has the father, the other does not.
If you are talking about entries in FamilySearch, I believe you are saying the mother appears once with her husband and all the children and then a second time with all the children (same PID numbers) but no father. This is a pain to fix since you can't just add the father because you get the That Relationship Already Exists message.
Where the children appear with just the mother click on the edit icon next to the child. Next to the mother click Remove or Replace, remove the mother and type Duplicate in for the reason. Now you should just have the one family unit.
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The procedure explained by Deborah can risk separating previously completed child to parent sealings, leading to the dreaded blue box on the ordinance page.
A better and actually quicker way to fix what you are seeig, is to click Add Spouse for the mother that does not have one, enter as the spouse with just a first name (I usually use the actual spouse's first name without a capital letter. ), then merge the two husbands. This correctly merges all child relationships at once and correctly preserves any child to parent sealings.
The most common time I have seen this has been when the father was merged with a duplicate and the wife and children did not get carried over during the merge. When there is a father with all the children and then the father and mother with all the children, this usually means multiple indexed records which did not include the mother's name (as many older parish records do not) have been merged in by someone who did not complete the job.
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Thank you Gordon Collett. I was not aware that the fix I usually use could damage ordinances. I'll start using your method.
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Gordon
I believe this is a problem that FamilySearch needs to fix. Whilst I (as a non-member of the Church) do try to avoid anything that might mess-up ordinances, the developers need to take into consideration the many other users who fall into the same category as me, but are completely unaware (or couldn't care less) of the consequences of certain actions. Please don't put the onus on ordinary users here - try to persuade the "powers that be" to amend the programming in order to block any actions (intended or not) that might damage your work.
BTW - apart from you providing this useful advice here (which will save me time and effort in the future), is it published elsewhere -e.g. in a KA or elsewhere on the website?
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