L5VT-1NL is shown to be having children from two men during the same timeframe

marierl

L5VT-1NL is shown to be having children from two men during the same timeframe

AmericanLady1953

Dear Marriel

We saw a source indicating Elizabeth Dicker married Andrew Preston, but no source for George Gribble's marriage. Please research and verify that George Gribble was actually married to Elizabeth Dicker. If not, then you can remove Elizabeth Dicker from George Gribble and his children. Thank you for your observation.

dontiknowyou

The PID L5VT-1NL also has attached sources for both Preston and Gribble children, so just detaching it from one family will merely cause the FT hint system to suggest re-attaching it.

Looking at the sources, I see there is one for Elizabeth Dicker and Andrew Preston. All the Gribble sources say only Elizabeth. So, yes, on the George Gribble page detach L5VT-1NL from him and his children. Use the Edit icon next to her to do it all in one. Then also...

1. Create a new Elizabeth, mother of George Gribble's children. Let's say she is PID-NEW.
2. Detach all the Elizabeth and Gribble sources from L5VT-1NL and attach them to PID-NEW.
3. Detach the 3 Ancestry links from L5VT-1NL; they have zero content and point behind a paywall. For all we know, they are relevant to PID-NEW or not relevant at all.
4. Delete the spurious alternate names from L5VT-1NL. This discourages the hint system from making spurious connections.
5. On LCTK-LK7 George Gribble under the Collaborate tab (web) or in a Note (mobile app) leave an explanation that you have de-conflated Elizabeth.

I see L5VT-1NL Elizabeth Dicker also has 2 different mothers. It all makes work for the genealogist to do.

NidaFL

If you look at the sources for both George and Andrew they both have a wife Elizabeth Dicker. Indicating there is more than one Elizabeth Dicker. The issue is, to which mother do the children belong. by careful examination of the sources, the children can be correctly attached to the correct father. As to which is the correct mother, and the correct wife, only more research may reveal that answer. A new Elizabeth Dicker needs to be created, but the question is , to which husband and children should she be attached.

Gordon Collett

Do NOT remove or move any children until you really get a good understanding of what happened with this record. What you are seeing very frequently means some incorrect merges occurred. Just deleting relationships will make the results of the merge even worse. This is particularly important if any ordinances are involved.

Looking at Elizabeth Dicker's change log, I see 10 merges. So she is the combination of 11 different records. Some of those records may be merges of even more Elizabeths. Five of the merges have her full name of Elizabeth Dicker. The other five just have Elizabeth. The other hint that there are some bad merges involved here, is that Elizabeth has two sets of parents.

I have found it easiest for me in this kind of mess to start with the children. For example, Margaret Gribble b 1772. Going to her change log, her parents were originally George Gibble and Betty.

Betty was deleted in a merge with a Elizabeth Dicker just last November. The first thing I would do is restore Betty and see how many of the children of George Gibble end up with her. They all might.

Study this out through everyone's change logs. Plan on spending a few days just getting to know everyone and planning. For the health of the database, it is much better to untangle this knot rather than just chopping it up.

You almost certainly do not need to create a new Elizabeth Dicker. You just need to pull out all the other Elizabeths buried in her so they end back with their correct husbands and correct children.

dontiknowyou

I work from the historical records attached. That is all.

Paul W

Too many users get far too carried away by the idea of having just one ID for as many individuals as possible who ever lived on Earth. The result is they make hasty decisions (often based on a FamilySearch suggestion) that two (or more) totally different individuals are of the same identity, so go ahead and merge them.

As Gordon suggests, when there have been multiple, incorrect merges it can take two or three days to sort out the mess. Not only in detaching relationships, but seeing certain sources are transferred to a "restored" person and many of the "Custom events" are moved / deleted, too.

I recently had a case of five individuals with a common name having been combined to effectively become one person. It seems amazing how even a very inexperienced user can do this. Do they not check the profile after their work and see an individual who apparently lived in several parts of the country at the same time, but had a different spouse and children whilst at each of these locations?

I genuinely believe some users feel under too much pressure in trying to implement FamilySearch's "main" aim and there should be far more emphasis on the care that must be taken in making merges. From the work I carry out in Family Tree, on a daily basis, I would not be surprised that hundreds (conservative estimate) of individuals are disappearing every week - "composite individuals" taking their place, ruining ordinance and other genealogical work that has probably taken place over a period of many years.

Please make it an aim to restore all the individuals that are being treated as though they never lived. Surely this is more important than even the worthy aims connected to merging of IDs that truly are a match?

dontiknowyou

@marierl , if the prospect of sorting out this mess seems overwhelming, please say so. There are readers here who like that work.