Genealogy Chat

I incorrectly entered 'George Briggs' as the spouse for 'Phoebe Dunsdon'. It should have been 'William Joseph Briggs'. Because George was already in my Tree as someone's child I cannot delete him and niether can I change him as a marriage partner for Phoebe. I have tried without success to get help from customer support. Is there anyone out there who can help ? Many thanks Mary

Can't you just edit his name?

Hi mary, ive done that by accident a few times all i do is click on his name in the tree and when his details come up at the bottom left hand side just delete his name then add the new persons

Hi there My problem is not that the individual is wrong - just that the wrong marriage has been assigned to him. I cannot delete the marriage & I cant delete the individual because his parents were entered first......Aaaaaaargh !!

As Louise said, - Can't you just edit his name and change it that way? Dea x

No, because his parents are already added, & the correct individual also has his parents & siblings. I would prefer not to have to delete and re-enter more than 60 records. It should be possible to edit his marriage details, that is all that is wrong. Mary

Export your tree as a gedcom and edit in another program (PAF5) from familysearch(.)com, or family tree maker or similar. Then put it back into GR. Added advantage is that you get a backup, which you should have anyway Peter

Mary, if you are still stuck on this, can you just confirm whether it is your GR tree that you are having trouble with, or a family tree program that you have installed on your computer? (If it is GR then presumably it is Phoebe who you need to delete and then add her in the right place) Kate.

Same problem for Phoebe because she has been linked in marriage with George & he in turn is linked with his parents & siblings etc I cant delete him without having to delete over 50 entries. It should be possible to EDIT an incorrect event. Mary

Mary, I still don't get whether it is your GR tree you are talking about or some other one. If it is your GR tree, then if George was already in your tree when you made him be Phoebe's husband, that means you added Phoebe to your tree as his wife, and so it should be easy to delete her (though if you have added their children and / or Phoebe's parents etc you would have to delete those first). If it is a family tree package that you have on your computer, then if you say what one it is perhaps somebody who uses the same one will know how to sort it out. Kate.

The error has been made by me when entering data on my GR tree - not my own package. I was updating the GR tree direct. I entered George as the child of his parents Ada & William. Then I intended to add Phoebe as Williams second wife. Instead she has been entered as Georg's wife. It seems that the GR programme will not allow the marriage to be edited, neither can I delete Phoebe because she is linked to George who in turn is linked to about 50+ others...... Mary

Mary, can you not just change his name to 'Unknown' Jean

Mary, you should be able to delete Phoebe, but if you have added her parents and / or her children you will have to delete them first. When she has nobody attached to her except for George then you will be able to delete her. Basically, you have to delete people in any particular line in the reverse order of how you added them, because the GR tree structure does not work like a normal family tree programme; each person in the tree is defined by their relationship to another person. You will also find that if somebody in your tree married, say, their cousin, you will not be able to add a marriage between two people already in the tree but have to put one of the people in twice. If you do get your own family tree program on your computer, then you can download a GEDCOM of your tree from GR, sort it out, and then upload the new copy. Kate.

An additional complication is that you cannot delete a duplicate name, even when it is only attached to one person. The computer does not know which one to delete. So: edit the unwanted name so that it is unique in your tree before deleting.