How do I delete a person?
How do I remove this person with no name, sources, or links? I think they were created in error because of a missing person or relationship in a census record improperly indexed.
The ID number is: HWTL-6FY
Thank you,
Heather
Best Answer
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You may also try the following.
How to delete a person from Family Tree?
You can delete a deceased person's record from Family Tree if you are the one that created the record and no other contributor has changed it. The message "Delete Person Unavailable" appears if you cannot delete a person.
You can also delete a living person's record if it appears in your private spaces.
When you delete a record, these changes occur:
Family Tree removes any relationships to other individuals.
The record can no longer be modified.
The record can only be searched by ID number.
This process can feel a bit intimidating, but rest assured that there are ways to restore deleted records or relationships through the Latest Changes feature. To learn how, see related articles linked at the end.
Steps (website)
While signed into FamilySearch, navigate to the Person page of the individual whose record you want to delete.
If you do not see Vitals near the top of the page, click the Details tab.
Scroll down to the Tools section in the right column.
Click Delete Person. If the link says Delete Person Unavailable, it means that multiple contributors have made changes to the record. Consider these alternatives: If the person never existed, contact FamilySearch Support.
Delete relationships.
Merge duplicate records.
Edit incorrect data.
Review the information in the Delete Person window that appears.
Explain why you are deleting the person.
Check the boxes to indicate that you reviewed the relationships and included a reason statement.
Click Delete.
Getting help
If the person never existed, and you cannot delete the person, contact FamilySearch Support and provide the information below:
- Your username and helper number.
- Name and ID number of the person you want deleted.
- Reason the person should be deleted.
After your case has been reviewed, you will receive a response from support informing you of the outcome.
Related articles
How do I restore a deleted record for a person in Family Tree?
How does Family Tree protect the privacy of living people?
How do I merge possible duplicates in Family Tree?
How do I merge duplicates in my private space in Family Tree?
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Answers
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Oh, I love these people. Absolutely no information. So annoying to work with.
Looking at the person's history, it looks like they were created as an unknown spouse to Richard Dean Powers. Obviously Richard has both of his wives listed already; the only reason that there should be a "?" person would be if there was another person that Richard married that isn't yet known about.
Assuming that's not the case, you should just get rid of the profile. The easiest option would probably be to just merge the person with one of Richard's wives - I would make sure that the record with the real information is on the right side of the merge; that will preserve the ID number. That's probably a lot easier than trying to contact FamilySearch to have the person deleted.
Honestly, the "?" record is clearly just "the unknown wife of Richard Dean Powers". Well, now you have real information on her, so you would just treat it like any other duplicate record.
Hope that helps :)
Cody Bailey
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Heather
Further to what 'Cody' has already proffered ...
As an aside ...
Here is a "Knowledge Article" in 'FamilySearch':
Why does a person's name have a question mark in Family Tree?
Just so as you are aware ...
We need to do, our 'Due Diligence' (ie, "Checking" All); BEFORE, "Merging"/"Combining" ...
Just a thought.
Brett
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Most of the time the Change Log can help you figure out what is going on in a situation like this.
Starting with ? HWTL-6FY, in her change log: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/changelog/HWTL-6FY you can see that she was originally imported when Family Tree was first created in the spring of 2012 as the wife of Richard D. Powers 9QTN-XMG.
Going to the change log for him: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/changelog/9QTN-XMG you can see that in 2012 he came in as the husband of ? and the father of Richard H. Powers 9QTN-XM4.
Looking next at the change log for Richard H. at https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/changelog/9QTN-XM4 it shows that he was entered or imported into Family Tree as the son of Richard D with just his name and one piece of Other Information, the 1850 census. Since this all took place June 18, 2021, this was still probably all imported into Family Tree from an older database.
Using this Change Log information, it is possible to recreate the original Family Tree import for these people in beta.familysearch.org. It would have looked like this:
This is a very typical appearance for an old extraction program record in which the record being extracted did not include the mother's name either because the mother's name was not there or could not be assumed from the record. (Does anyone know if there was an extraction program for the 1850 census?)
Looking at the 1850 census at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDZF-6CZ?id=LDTY-T1Y and checking the actual image, you can see that while people are grouped into households, there is no indication of relationships between the people in the household. So technically, it appears that this extraction record is only saying that Richard H. is in the household of Richard D., not that he is his son.
This means two things:
1) The question mark is Richard H. Power's mother, Judith, and should be merged with her.
2) Using the 1850 census record as a starting point, if my assumption of an extraction project is correct, you may be able to find a Family Tree record for each of the 13 people listed there in this exact format, that is as a "child/ household member" with name spelled exactly as found in the census, with no mother, but with father being a duplicate Richard D. Powers who also has a wife ?. Some of these may already be merged away and buried in Change Logs.
Confirmation that this was an extraction program comes from the ordinance page. If you have access to this, you will see that all of Richard H's ordinances were completed in 1972 including being sealed to parents. The 1972 sealing has no parents listed but rather a blue box that says "This sealing-to-parents ordinance is valid. The parents are not listed either because of privacy or because they do not match the parents listed in Family Tree." This was his sealing to Richard D and ?. When you properly merge ? and Judith, the two sealings listed for him will collapse into one and the blue box will disappear. (This is an illustration as to why it is always preferable to merge relationships if at all possible rather than delete them.)
Checking Richard D and Judith's other children who are also listed in the census I find Henriette Powers is in the same situation and there is ? HWT2-FCH who also was removed rather than merged with Judith as she should have been. Their other children do not have 1972 ordinances so there still might be duplicates for them in Family Tree you have not found yet.
If there are duplicates for Judith's children with her first husband who are listed in the 1850 census under Richard D. Powers and ordinance work was done for them in 1972, sealing them to Richard D with unknown mother, then those blue boxes will have to stay since the father was incorrect.
In summary: do go ahead and get these ? merged with the proper mother so they are not floating around loose in the Family Tree database, so you are sure you have found all the duplicate records from that 1850 census extraction program, and so the ordinance pages for her children display properly
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