2 Individuals With Same PID
I was doing a merge by PID after importing from FS into Ancestral Quest on my computer, and found a father and son with the same PID issued by FS. That needs to be fixed. The PID is GC6J-TCY
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I see the ID you refer to has been merged with GHP5-G1F. Have you tried to restore the "deleted" record to see if this resolves the problem? The identity of GC6J-TCY is currently shown as "?" Was it you that performed the merge, or another user?
Looking at the details, GHP5-G1F has, in turn, been merged with GZRK-29W and that ID merged with GZRK-N8B. That ID has been merged with GHRJ-V64 and that with GZRK-KF3. That has been merged with GZRK-8J4, which has been merged with GZRK-XW9. The last named ID has been merged with L5YX-77R and that with GC6J-B9L. Again, that ID has been merged with GC6V-MS2. (Phew! How long does this chain of merges continue?) GC6V-MS2 has been merged with GC6V-971 and that ID with GQG7-615. (Is this some kind of prank or an automated process that has gone wildly wrong?) GQG7-615 has been merged with GC6J-TVP... and, I'm sorry, I have to give up at this point, as there might be hundreds of such merges.
The common factor is they all are named "?" and appear to be the subject of the efforts of user FSUSER07042021. Ah, I should have looked more closely at that name at the outset. It does indeed seem to be some automated, computer clean-up of "?" IDs. At this point, I'm out of my depth, so would be grateful if someone with more experience of these procedures could explain what has been going on here. (I believe all "merges" are dated 22 July 2021.)
Sorry I couldn't help, Tammy - I did try!
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I didn't know about the merges. I'll go take a look, thanks. 🙂
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I just checked, all of the surrounding profiles/family members are now gone. I've deleted that family file from my computer, and will reimport it with the new PIDs
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I'm pleased you raised the issue here, Tammy, and hope a FamilySearch employee will be able to explain (to us all) what has been happening here.
Meanwhile, I hope you soon resolve your personal issues, in getting your family members properly added back to Family Tree.
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There is a YouTube video that rants about placeholder PIDs on FamilySearch and advocates they all be deleted. How? By merging. Never mind filling out the profile.
Very often there are valuable clues in the attached profiles. I enjoy turning "?" into a person with name, other details, and sources. Usually "?" is a wife and mother and has descendants. Erasing the PID is disrespectful.
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Looking at the bottom of the change log on GC6J-TCY, I see Asig III von der Ostmark, about 845-. The name was later changed to Graf Asig III von Leinegau. Is that your person?
Possibly the merge happened as you were exporting, so your export is not well synched with what is on Family Tree.
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As long as IDs with a "?" name have no sources or notes attached I have never seen anything wrong in detaching their relationships. Especially if they were created by the programs no longer used by FamilySearch - i.e. the related projects that created those multiple IDs for "John Smith" - one for every child christening or marriage event he was named in (presumably under the extraction program).
My view is that the creation of "?" IDs for unknown wives / mothers would be considered bad practice today, so unless they have at least been given a "partial identity" (by the adding of sources and other detail) they are "non-persons" who have no place in Family Tree, nor should have ever got there in the first place.
However, if and when I do feel it proper to merge them with an identifiable individual, I usually add a simple reason statement, such as: "? now identified as Margaret Brown".
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I ignore "?", just like I ignore "Donald Duck". It will all come out in the wash.
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I wish that all of the public, cooperative, online family trees would completely disappear, and be replaced by complete and correct family trees consisting of everyone that had ever been born, that had lived more than 24 hours after birth.
Full names, dates, and places for everyone
Maiden names for the females
All dates using the Gregorian calendar
All places using today's world map
Children shown with their biological parents
No wishful thinking allowed!
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Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you don't know who the parents are, then you shouldn't put anything. Don't add parents at all. Same with spouse. Seeing "Mrs (spouse's name)" is one of my biggest pet peeves. If you don't know what the wife's name was, then don't put anything at all. Leave it empty. If you know the wife's first name, then put that, with the husband's surname in parentheses. For example Elizabeth (Smith), as the wife of John Smith, when you don't know her maiden name.
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Parentheses are illegal characters in name fields on FT.
I break many brick walls with Mrs. ______ Married Name: I populate her profile with details gleaned from records of her husband and children, and hey presto FT hints serve up the missing link.
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I've put parentheses in the surname box in the FS family tree without any problem.
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Sometimes you know a person's siblings but not their parents, but you cannot enter a sibling relationship in FS Family Tree (or any other tree, really) without at least one parent. (If you're confident that they were full siblings, then you probably want placeholders for both parents.)
A question mark is often more accurate than a guess, especially in cultures where a wife didn't just take her husband's family name as her own. The question mark perfectly encapsulates what is known: "this is the person who is the parent of these people, but nothing is known yet of his/her name."
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The accepted genealogical practice is to leave an unknown name (field) blank. However, I rather liked an alternative suggestion at https://www.genealogy.com/articles/twigs/rhonda010600.html, which includes the suggestion: Another acceptable practice is to use the initials MNU which stands for "maiden name unknown".
Also, in a Google search:
"How do you write maiden name in a family tree?
Using maiden names in family trees connects women to their birth families, ensures that you record their pre-marriage names, and keeps consistency in your tree among women who never married, married once, and married more than once. If you don't know a woman's maiden name, leave her last name blank."
Surely there is a FamilySearch article on the subject? It must be well hidden, if there is - I've just tried a number of keywords to find a KA, but nothing was produced. But please don't use "Mrs Smith" for the spouse of John Smith. No genealogy reference book would surely ever suggest this practice.
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When entering a woman's surname into my genealogy program on my computer, and I don't know her maiden name, putting her married name in parentheses keeps the index neat, plus helps me by allowing me to know which females without a maiden name belong to which family. If I don't know the wife's name at all, I leave it blank, and don't enter any information at all into my database.
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I have a set of 2nd great grandparents who weren't married. KH8Z-7YF is my great grandfather. His parents weren't married, and he had his mother's surname.
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