What do you do when you discover a mistake in your Tree?

[Tim]

From using the wonderfully helpful FTanalyzer to identify people with missing Baptism and Christening records, I have just discovered an error in my tree.

I know we all find little errors from time to time, but this error has resulted in 447 descendants . And also means I have a completely new line to investigate. (every cloud has a silver lining?)

I'm investigating how easy it is to remove a person and their descendants from FTM but I'll also need to remove them from Lost Cousins as well. I wonder how many hours went into researching this branch?

Once I manage to prune this branch off my tree, the question becomes, so what do I do with this data?
Should I just forget it? Should I create a public tree on Ancestry and see if it helps anyone?

What should I do, and what would you do?

 

[SuzanneD]

Oh dear. I think your idea of publishing just that family as a public tree somewhere is a good one. I have had the odd incidence like this in my research too and I have ended up leaving the people in my tree on my computer, once decoupled from the wrong place, as I've never found any program where it was easy to delete out a branch wholesale. Most I've used let you export the branch to a new file easily enough, but don't delete the line in the main file.

 

[Tim]

Oh dear. I think your idea of publishing just that family as a public tree somewhere is a good one. I have had the odd incidence like this in my research too and I have ended up leaving the people in my tree on my computer, once decoupled from the wrong place, as I've never found any program where it was easy to delete out a branch wholesale. Most I've used let you export the branch to a new file easily enough, but don't delete the line in the main file.

Yes, I'm a bit worried that will be the case here. I may have to refer to the Help Manual!!

 

[Alexander Bisset]

In FTM if you detach the person from the family they are wrong they will be removed from your main line. They won't however be deleted. This would allow you to maintain that line in your tree. You might take the time to delete everyone in the branch starting from the lowest down the line but with 447 people that will take a while. It's not that difficult though as long as you start at the leaves (ie: someone with no children) you just select them and delete eventually the last person you will delete is the person who you originally got wrong who is at the top of that branch.

Exporting that branch and making it available at least preserves your research and is a good idea.

HOWEVER, it is entirely possible for instance that you got the person wrong as it was a similar name but slightly wrong parents. You might just find the real parents of that person and discover that the two fathers are actually brothers and hence the person you got wrong is actually a cousin of the person you now have correct. Given naming conventions of naming a child after the father's father in some parts of the UK, it is relatively common to have numerous children born around the same period in the same area with identical names, even very unusual names being identical. However they are usually first cousins.

So deleting the entire branch in that case would be counter productive. Of course since you'd exported and saved the "incorrect" branch you could just import it back in should you ever find a link. The problem is its more difficult to find links if the data isn't in your file.

So clutter vs might be useful. Depends on how much of a hoarder you are I guess.

 

[Tim]

Yes, deleting the parent relationships would fix the integrity of the tree, and presumably then I'd have an unconnected family.

I think I will export it and see if it helps anyone. I think I'll have to think a bit more about whether I delete it from the tree as well. My inclinations are to delete it as it will continue to be reported in FTA, and I don't really want to do any more work on this branch.

 

[Bob Spiers]

I know we all find little errors from time to time, but this error has resulted in 447 descendants . And also means I have a completely new line to investigate. (every cloud has a silver lining?)
What should I do, and what would you do?

That takes me back Tim (before LC ) and in my early research days when I latched on to a branch of my maternal Adams Tree and with the aid of Ancestry Public Trees soon had quite an array of names. It was entirely of my own doing as I became convinced a great x 3 Adams grandfather was the continuation of the line. Not anywhere near your head count, but a quarter at least.

The problem was compounded (embarrassment wise) because I picked up two very active contacts who were welcoming me into the fold as a long lost cousin and even receiving photos from them. Then WHAM, BHAM - can't remember the whys and wherefores now - but what began as a little cloud of doubt, soon developed into thunder clouds of despair. And think of all that work!

I had to get in touch with each Contact and own up to my mistake, and I think regrettably all round wave goodbye and thank them for all their help. I had to remove names one by one starting at the bottom upwards as Alexander suggests. Not just from Ancestry -although that was the most important - but from my own Tree (FTL) and Genes although the latter was easy as I just uploaded a Gedcom via Ancestry.

It can happen and the only thing to do is to recognise the mistake, take corrective actions such as the options available (you will know best on that) and move on. Good luck!

 

[peter]

Tim, if only you'd stayed with Genopro... it would have been so easy!

 

[Tim]

Tim, if only you'd stayed with Genopro... it would have been so easy!

Well I did consider loading the gedcom into GenoPro......

But I would have lost all the media

I need to triple triple check that I have made a mistake.

 

[Heather]

What should I do, and what would you do?

Oh dear Tim isn't it soul destroying when that happens? but what is it that they say? "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" I think the idea of saving the work that you have done, is a really good idea because as Alexander says you may find that the work you have done on that branch may still be related in some way to your tre,e so to delete it completely might not be a good idea. I'm a hoarder so I would keep it and who knows you may be pleasantly surprised some time in the future Good Luck !

 

[Tim]

Oh dear Tim isn't it soul destroying when that happens?

Yes

But as more records come to light and we're able to view the originals, I'm sure all of us could have scenarios like this.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Tim, if only you'd stayed with Genopro... it would have been so easy!

Peter, without going into great detail, but in generic terms, how would it be easy in Genopro when used as a main Database ?

I use Genopro but not in a collective Data base sense, but to enter branches of my Tree manually into individual named Genopro Charts. I then laminate the chart, keep in a binder and send a copy to that arm of the family which are gratefully received.

 

[Bryman]

Recently, I had a somewhat similar experience to Tim where 2 groups of 4 matches were identified in LC and then it became apparent that one or more mistakes had been made and they were not the same family. There was actually a spelling difference in the surname for one group of matches! This was a much simpler situation than Tim describes and only took a few minutes to remove the census references from LC, after which I advised the other contacts as to what I had done so that they would not be confused.

It was a bit of a chore to make the deletions in LC as the My Ancestors report kept moving back to the top between deletions. Perhaps I should have used the Name sort sequence but the Household view did keep everything together so that nothing was forgotten.

Fortunately, I do still use GenoPro and disconnecting the descendents from my 'tree' took only a few seconds.

I keep a separate tree for each surname to avoid large complicated diagrams. External links are made between each tree as appropriate and some trees are split further (via internal links) if they get too big. Because GenoPro provides a simple and quick way to split off part of a tree as a standard feature, there was nothing complicated and all the data remained in tact, just in case I find a family link sometime in the future. The disconnected branch can then remain as a dormant branch until I reconnect it at an appropriate point, or send to someone else who is investigating that line.

The only downside that I have found with this 'separate tree' format is that I cannot work on the whole family as a single entity, as when using FTA. If GenoPro were still being developed, I would ask for a change to the script which produces reports, including gedcom files. If external links to .gno files were to be (optionally) handled like the internal links then I could have the best of both worlds. I used to do a LOT of programming in various languages but feel that I am now rather out of touch to make such changes without guidance from the developers. It would be just too easy to overlook some small detail and then spend enormous amounts of time investigating apparent anomalies when using the revised code.

 

[AndyMick]

Don't get rid of it - you've spent time and effort on it, so it's worth keeping somewhere. You may well find you are connected as Alexander says, but by a different route - if you found that and you'd deleted it, then what would you be thinking? Perhaps you shouldn't answer that!

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Tim, if only you'd stayed with Genopro... it would have been so easy!

The fact he is using Family Tree Maker is either here nor there it takes just two clicks to unlink a family as he described. Hardly difficult. Genopro is great for graphical representation but its poor for integration with search systems which is one of the major reasons Tim cited for switching.