Help with Ancestry tree please

[Anne in Carlisle]

I have finally taken the plunge and uploaded a Gedcom to Ancestry. I'm quite pleased with the result, particularly the way it has retained my own sources, which are in my own note form.

I am enjoying discovering a few more sources from 'Hints' but am coming unstuck with one aspect (I think I have noticed the problem on other people's tree). If I add a marriage source to a couple already on the tree it makes two marriage events with two sets bride and groom. I then have a difficult job of deciding which ones to delete (not the ones with the descendants!!) and when I do so the source is removed.

I think (from my FH program) I should be adding the source to the COUPLE or EVENT and not to one person but I can't for the life of me see how to do this. HELP!!!!

Anne

[Guest]

Maybe I am reading this wrong ? but if you scroll down the record you get an arrow click on that and save it to Bride or Groom etc then when it is saved you click on the record and save it to whoever else ? eg Groom or Bride
If I am reading this wrong then ignore me

[Anne in Carlisle]

Yes, I did that Val but I ended up with two brides and two grooms of the same name! Aaaarggh
Anne

[Rick]

Yes, I did that Val but I ended up with two brides and two grooms of the same name! Aaaarggh
Anne

I'm assuming these are from parish records ? If so, here are a few tips:

A marriage record is indexed by both bride and groom. If you add the record for one of the couple to the correct person in your tree, it should automatically add it to the other one without duplication (some caveats below !!)
If someone has your couple in their tree and has incorrectly added a groom's record to the bride or vice-versa, you will receive a record hint for that incorrect record as well as one for the correct record. You'll soon get used to recognising them and can just safely delete them (the hints that is).
Make sure when you have the Merge dialog open that it has correctly picked up the other half in the lower box. If it doesn't recognise the other person in your tree it will clearly say "New person" in the right-hand box. Above this is a button which says "Not a new person ?" Click that to choose the correct spouse from your tree. If you fail to do this, you will get a second marriage event and a duplicate spouse.
Never edit the Location field during the Merge - do it before or after the Merge, or it will duplicate the event (but not the couple).
Also watch out if you're adding a new person who isn't already in your tree from a marriage record. A few of the databases add the spouse with no gender set. This can cause some bizarre behaviour if you don't spot it and correct it.
If in doubt, create a test tree with a couple of test people in it and play around. It can definitely be made to work !!

[Anne in Carlisle]

Thank for this Rick, I'll try harder! I did once try clicking 'not a new person' and it changed the groom to the bride! LOL. I'm not selecting hints from other people's trees, just parish record images etc. the problem seems to occur when I try to add another source to an already existing couple from my Gedcom with my own source note. The problem does not happen when I add souces to (for example) an already existing baptism or burial. In that case Ancestry will just add another to the list of sources.
Anne

[Rick]

Thank for this Rick, I'll try harder! I did once try clicking 'not a new person' and it changed the groom to the bride! LOL. I'm not selecting hints from other people's trees, just parish record images etc. the problem seems to occur when I try to add another source to an already existing couple from my Gedcom with my own source note. The problem does not happen when I add souces to (for example) an already existing baptism or burial. In that case Ancestry will just add another to the list of sources.
Anne

I think it's just a bit of a learning curve. Once you understand why it's doing weird things, you can manipulate it to do what you want instead. It's just parish marriages where you see this problem. I realise you were not adding from tree hints, but if my Fred Smith in my tree matches the one in yours, you will not only get a tree hint from mine, you'll also get record hints for any records I've attached to my Fred Smith. So if I've attached the bride's record to the groom by mistake, your groom will get the bride's record as a hint.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Thanks for your suggestion Rick. At least I know I'm not missing something obvious.
Anne