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I've linked my grandad to the wrong brother

ProfilePosted byOptionsPost Date

Alison

Alison Report 14 Jul 2012 20:52

Sorry, wasn't quite sure how to describe my problem in the subject line :-D and wasn't quite sure which forum was best for this.

Basically, I was confident that I was going up the right track, I knew what my great grandmother's maiden surname was and dad remembered some of the relatives names, so I pieced it all together on the online software thingy here and on findmypast.

So anyway I showed it to dad today and he was remembering more as we went along - like he thought the grandma's first name was Sarah not Elizabeth as I had listed, and he thought the oldest child was a girl, not a boy as I had listed.

Going back over it again this evening and following the census details, I can see that in fact 2 brothers married 2 sisters - and I have linked my grandad with the wrong brother and sister (are you keeping up :-D) But I can't for the life of me work out how to un-link them on the software and link him with the right ones...aarrrrgh!!!

Does anyone know how I can do this? There must be a way, surely...

Apologies if it's (a)obvious and I've missed it or (b) I've completely confused you.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Jonesey

Jonesey Report 14 Jul 2012 21:56

If brother A actually married sister A but you have entered him as marrying sister B then the easiest solution is to simply change the forenames and dates of birth of either the two brothers or two sisters over. That way your grandad should appear as the child of the correct couple.

The ancestors of the brothers and the sisters will still be correct as indeed will be their descendants.

Alison

Alison Report 14 Jul 2012 23:41

Genius! So simple, yet will completely solve my little problem, thank you so much!

DazedConfused

DazedConfused Report 15 Jul 2012 11:42

Also do not take for granted the names your dad remembers.

My 2 g/aunt 's told me quite a bit about their family when I started out. And they told me that after the youngest daughter was born that they remembered their mother having another baby boy. In fact she had a little girl who only lived for 1 day. And some of the 'family' names they remembered were not those I had found, so like you I thought oops I must be wrong. So off I went and re-checked and re-checked all my data, looking at other records and eventually realised that they just did not remember as clearly as they thought.

I think that in their 90's they did very well to remember half of what they did and that around 60% of it was correct. But I learned that I really had to check everything they told me. :-)

Alison

Alison Report 15 Jul 2012 23:19

Thanks pigletspal, yes indeed! I am inclined to believe my dad on this occasion as he rattled off three names of other siblings which tallies with his father being in that family rather than the other one. Just my luck that two banks brothers married two hall sisters, both of whom had children called William and lily, among others! Especially as a newbie to all this, I got very confused :-D

Thanks for all the help. I am fairly happy that I have resolved this one...for now...