Genealogy from the perspective of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon, LDS)

Thursday, April 21, 2016

In the FamilySearch Family Tree, Deleting is a last resort

I have had a few comments recently about deleting individuals in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. Deleting individuals is a serious issue on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree and not to be done except in very limited situations. We do not delete duplicate individuals, we MERGE them. However, we do "detach" inappropriate sources and delete relationships that are also inappropriate. These actions do not result in losing the existing data. The Help Center notes the following about deleting people.
Only the patron who creates a record for a person in Family Tree can delete the record. If another patron makes changes to the record of the person, the creator of the record cannot delete it. If another user makes changes and you attempt to delete the person, you see Delete Person Unavailable in Family Tree (362110).
The Help Center article entitled, "Deleting a person from Family Tree" also states:
Notes:
  • If you delete a person, you also delete the relationships to other individuals in Family Tree.
  • If you delete a person by mistake, you can restore that person. See Restoring a deleted person in Family Tree (57078).
  • It is also important to note that patrons cannot merge records of living individuals. They must delete a duplicate living record.
  • You cannot add to, change, or modify a deleted record.
If you create a duplicate record for a deceased person by mistake, merge the two records rather than delete the person. See Merging duplicate records in Family Tree (53952).
 The articles entitled, "Delete Person Unavailable in Family Tree (362110)" suggest these alternatives:
Instead of deleting a person, consider the following alternatives.
  • Edit incorrect data.
  • Merge duplicate records
  • Delete relationships.
If this person never existed, contact FamilySearch Support to have the data removed."
I think this is a rather clear and simple solution.

3 comments:

  1. What if I put wrong grandparent to parent in my tree???

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See the instructions in the following link: http://thefhguide.com/project-1-family-tree.html#goal-6

      Delete
  2. Well someone is deleting people in my family tree.

    ReplyDelete