Family Historian User Group

A tribute to the stability and intuitiveness of FH software, have been using for 2 years and this is the first time I’ve unwittingly created a situation I can’t seem to resolve. I’m using V7.0.21 on a Windows 11 PC.

In the process of eliminating a redundant entry on a person I mistakenly created twice with different IDs, at some point (not exactly sure when or where) I suddenly noticed that in the Focus Window I have a person married to the same person twice. It looks similar to a case in a video (and a similar question posted) which explains how to merge, but in the video the redundant names have different IDs. I notice in my case that the person in question, his wife, his parents, and their daughter all have the same record ID. That is the husband appears twice with same ID 329, his wife appears twice with same ID 328, their daughter twice (257) and the husband’s parents twice with IDs respectively 282 and 281. It presents visually as a case where a person has been married twice, but they are identical people duplicated throughout the display.

When I use the Find feature and search for the names of husband, wife, daughter, etc, the names only come up once (which I expected) and the family connections are as displayed in the Focus Window. For better or worse, I have closed and done a full backup as I always do, and reopened, just to make sure it wasn’t some hiccup that a restart might solve. It reopened displaying the double names as when I closed.

I was reluctant to start merging anything since the starting conditions were not exactly identical as the tutorial (different record numbers for repeated names) I found. Any suggestions? And apologize if I'm asking a question already resolved elsewhere.

You do have Abigail married to Thomas twice. If you go to the records window and select the Families tab you can delete one of these families since they appear to be identical. Select one of the families and hit the delete key. That will not delete any of the Individuals and the other family (marriage) will still be there.

Bill

Check first that the Family records are identical. May be better to merge them.

By the way if you don’t already have the Families tab showing in the Records Window use Tools > Preferences > Records Window, and under Record Type Display Options set Families to Always show. (That tab is hidden by default).

LornaCraig wrote: ↑

16 Jun 2023 09:03

By the way if you don’t already have the Families tab showing in the Records Window use Tools > Preferences > Records Window, and under Record Type Display Options set Families to Always show. (That tab is hidden by default).

Thanks for the tip!

Thanks for the tips. When I go to the Records Window and look at the Families tab and type in either of the spouse's last and first name, there are two family records but with different family Record IDs.

Following BillH comment (and mindful of David2416 comment on possibly merging them since Family Records were not identical), I deleted one of the families and checked for any deleterious impacts before I saved the changes, with the intent of just closing the program without saving if I did see impacts. There were none.

To avoid creating the mistake again, I'm guessing I mindlessly late one night married the husband a second time but linked him to an existing record, his first wife, creating a second mirror family with all of the same ancestors and descendants. Certainly possible a couple could have divorced and remarried, but don't recall getting one of those tips that said "do you really want to marry them again?" Maybe it did and I didn't notice it.

Such a warning would be a nice software mod, unless there's some other way I could have created this mirror family??

Bob, it is difficult to say what you did.
There's no Marriage event recorded for either 'family' so that is not the cause.
It is unlikely that you would have added the same person via the Spouse tab of the Property Box.
I wonder if you linked their daughter to her parents again when she was already linked. ( Possibly in AS? )
That would cause the Focus Window display and duplicate Family records.

tatewise wrote: ↑

16 Jun 2023 11:25

Bob, it is difficult to say what you did.
There's no Marriage event recorded for either 'family' so that is not the cause.
It is unlikely that you would have added the same person via the Spouse tab of the Property Box.
I wonder if you linked their daughter to her parents again when she was already linked. ( Possibly in AS? )
That would cause the Focus Window display and duplicate Family records.

Thanks. Agree with all, and you hit my problem on the head--difficult to say what I did!! I'm usually fairly attentive when dealing with databases and programs so I know "what I did" if something unexpected happens. It is possible it was triggered by a second linking of the daughter. Thanks for the observations.