Incorrect Links in FamilySearch™

Fixing FamilySearch™ Pedigree Linkage Problems

As I look into my own pedigree lines in FamilySearch™, I often discover that some of the information is no longer correct. Usually, the parents of one of my ancestors is no longer correct, often with impossible or unlikely dates or locations. This is more often a problem in Danish ancestry. In our work in our stake as missionaries, people ask me about their family information in FamilySearch™ and I find similar problems in their ancestral lines as well - also usually with Danish ancestors.

I am not entirely sure of the reasons for these problems, but it appears that other people who look into their ancestry see the option for resolving possible duplicates. Unfortunately, those not familiar with the distinctive cultural issues in Danish history combine records of people who should not be combined, in order to resolve these issues.

I intend to show here a few points of information that might help people recognize incorrect linkages in their pedigrees in the FamilySearch™ system.

In all of these situations or problems, it is very important to seek out the original or primary records to substantiate the real information. FamilySearch™ information alone cannot be trusted to resolve these errors. Sometimes, there are source documents listed in the FamilySearch™ information. In those cases, it is easier to resolve these problems.

Checking for Unlikely or Impossible Dates and Places

Often, the most obvious indication of an incorrect parent or pair of parents can be found in the birth, death and marriage dates. Mothers usually do not bear children when over the age of 40. Also, it should be obvious that mothers with death dates prior to the birth of their child is not possible. Look at the birth dates of parents, compared with the birth dates of the children. Sometimes, the parent is correct, but due to some combining with other people of the same name or simply erroneous data entry can account for this problem, but sometimes, it is the wrong people linked to your ancestor as parents. Another indication is unusual place-of-birth. During colonization or modern times, it is not unusual for people and families to move a lot during child-bearing years, but prior to those times, people usually did not travel far from their place of birth. 

For people with Danish or other Scandinavian ancestry, there is a particular problem because the people in those countries reused a small number of names extensively and, unfortunately, people have erroneously combined "duplicates" creating incorrect family linkages. I provide separate documents concerning Danish research, in particular, which should help in determining the correct information. See that information at the end of this article. 

Impossible or Improbable Family Sizes

Sometimes, there is an unusually large number of children in a family. When you check the children of a family, look for children who probably do not belong to the family. However, names should not be assumed to be unique for the children. In some cultures parents will name children with the same names as previous children who have died. It is best to take a look at dates to see whether they make sense. The spacing of children should be an indication of possible errors in incorrect children added to a family. Two years is normally a good space between children births, unless the child dies as an infant, in which case, a subsequent child may be born sooner.

Different Surnames

Depending on local culture, children with names different from their fathers surnames should be suspicious. There are countries where patronymics are used and children receive names based on the first name of their fathers or mothers. Again this is a case where original records should be consulted.

Repairing the Problems

There are various methods to be used in repairing incorrect family relationships in FamilySearch™. The best thing to do is to look at the "Person" view of the individual and look at the section that shows parents. Usually when there are suspected problems, there will be several sets of parents listed. As you look at the different sets of parents, you can most easily click on the "Preferred" box for that set and your pedigree view will show that proper linkage of the family. This, however will not fix the problem for other members of your family. When you have truly established that the correct parents are in the list, you can go to the other parents in that list (right side) and for each occurrence of the child click on "Edit Parents." you can there delete the relationship of the child to those parents. You should include in the comments why you believe that this particular set of parents is not correct. There may be more than one set of parents that need to be removed in this manner.

In some cases, there may not be the correct set of parents in the list and you may need to add the correct parents first. In this case, you must add the parents one at a time, then remove the incorrect parents as listed above.

Finding Sources

You can often find source information from right within FamilySearch™. This is in the "Hints" area. Usually these are records found in the indexing program of the church. You should be very careful to be sure that the people found are correct before adding them from these files, but it can be a very promising method of locating your ancestors and expanding your pedigree and family information in the system.

For particular areas of the world, there are other places you can go to online to search records for your family. The Ancestry™ and FindMyPast™ systems can be useful and the LDS church has agreements which allow you to use their extensive data files for searching.

For those people who have Danish ancestry, there are remarkable sources of information available for doing research online. I have a list of resources available that can help with this work. Also, I am writing some blogs which summarize methods you can use to do this Danish research, even with little or no knowledge of the Danish language.

- Joseph F. Buchanan

Status of this blog

Well, as you have probably observed, if any of you are still following this blog, I have not written anything for quite a while.

Our mission is keeping us busy. It is in someways that same as our mission in Germany, but in many ways it is different. We are involved with visiting quite a few people each week. Usually every week we begin to start teaching someone new and we have started some regular, weekly visits with people and are generally welcomed. Only a couple of times have we had people request that we do not contact them anymore. That is one difference from our work in Germany. People seem to be quite receptive to us here and welcome our visits and teaching.

We have definitely had some memorable experiences, but they usually are not for public release. For example, we helped one person work through serious suicidal feelings, including spending some time in the hospital with that person. We have had the wonderful experience of bringing some people from very low points in their lives. We have also seen s number of people start to come to church more and work towards activity and goals of temple attendance.

One major difference in this mission is that we are home and can be involved with family more. We recently attended the baptism of one of our beautiful granddaughters. We have family get-togethers and parties. We can care for grandchildren when the need arises. One problem with being at home, however, is the pressure of home and yard care and the distractions that are ever present at home. In Germany it was much better in being focused on the work. That is the major difference we see here.

One think I really like here is the ability to do more family history work, usually for others. We did some of that in Germany and had some marvelous experiences. Here I can use my resources more and have enjoyed helping others in their work. I especially enjoy the work on Danish research. One of our people asked for help and I have been able to work through a number of problems in the FamilySearch system in fixing the linkages in her Danish ancestry.

As a result of some contemplation on the FamilySearch linkage concerns, I have decided to start writing some documents describing my approaches to the work necessary in order to straighten out problems some people encounter in their ancestry in FamilySearch. The next few blog posts will be in regard to these concerns, first the general recognition of the problems and then some posts describing the work of research in Danish records.

Please feel free to let me know if there is anything in particular that you would like to see me post in these blogs.

We love the work of the Lord and feel that there is so much to do - in missionary work, in bringing the joys of the Gospel into the lives of others, in family history work and any other way the Lord needs us involved in His work.

Adjustments and Challenges

Here we are by our church building.

March began with our family birthday party on the 1st. We had a great time. It is wonderful being able to attend these now after mission two years of them.

Isn't she a charmer?

Spooner in uniform.

The week following our MTC experience was quite busy with mission meetings. We had a mission-wide conference and some training sessions for the missionaries receiving their iPads. This mission received their mission-issued iPads that week, culminating with a setup meeting on the 6th.

Sisters Reed and Stewart with us

One of the activities in a zone meeting

We also had a number of meetings with bishoprics and ward councils, receiving lists of people who we should start visiting. We visited some of them over the past two weeks.

Also, the past two Sundays we taught the missionary preparation class for the stake. We invited all of the students and had a great showing the first week (March 8) with 20 in attendance. They were very enthusiastic and the class was fun. There are some young people who are nearly ready to serve missions, including two young men entering their missions in the new few weeks, and also young people as young as twelve years old. One of our young men will be serving in Columbia and another in London, England.

Also during this time, we attended the production of the play "Jane Eyre" put on by the homeschool group, our granddaughter having written the script and several of the grandchildren performing (as well as out daughter). It was a wonderful performance. This was also on the 6th of March.

Our oldest granddaughter, also known as Avot, wrote and performed in the play.

Our daughter (on the left) was a narrator, a grandson is shown here in one of his several roles (sitting in the left chair).

Our grandson, known as Lek, standing over Goob who is in another role, injured and laying on the floor.

The play is over. It was a great success!

In our visits, we have had some nice times getting to know people. Most have welcomed us, but a few have been less open to us, which is to be expected. Many of our people have some serious difficulties in their lives, and really need the help of the Lord. We have had some wonderful meetings, feeling the Spirit of the Lord in our times with them.

On Sunday, the 8th, including our mission prep class, we had 9 events on our calendar. Our day started with an early meeting (after losing the government-mandated hour) at 7:30, another meeting at 8:15 and then our sacrament meeting at 9. We left that meeting a little early in order to get to Midway, Utah for another sacrament meeting - a mission report for Elder Benjamin Wasden. That was a great meeting. We hurried from that meeting to get back to West Jordan for the ward conference of the 44th ward, then went to a quick appearance of a birthday party (the son of a less-active family), then we had mission prep class. In the evening we went to Ogden to visit Irina, a member we were close to in Germany.

Last Sunday (yesterday, the 15th) was also busy. We also had a mission report, in Tooele, for Zach Thompson. We loved his talk. We also had a beautiful mission prep class, about 20 again in attendance.

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to take the Spanish elders to Temple square with an investigator and her daughter. It was beautiful hearing them taught in Spanish and then go through one of the presentations there (also in Spanish).

I included the word "Challenges" in the title. We still have been experiencing some sickness. I have had a problem with coughs and sickness. It hit me first as we were leaving Germany in December. It hit me again as we were in Oregon. It hit me again on March 7th and lasted a while. I hope it is finally over. It has been hard to serve. I know the Lord will bless us.

Well, that was quite a bit. I did not realize that I had collected so much to share. The last picture shows a water-color painting Shauna received before we left Germany. We had it professionally framed and it is hanging with another in our how. We love Lothar, the artist who painted it, and taught Shauna how to paint. My has our lives changed because of our missions. It is wonderful!

Begin the Mission (2) - the MTC

This past week we were at the Mission Training Center in Provo, Utah. It was a wonderful week. We opted to return home every day rather than stay in the MTC housing. It meant that we needed to be up every morning by 6 AM. Other than Tuesday, we were home by about 5:00 - 5:30 PM.

Basically, we had a combination of group sessions where all senior missionaries of our entry date meet together for training, then we spend a lot of time in our "districts" receiving individual training. The training is from the Preach My Gospel manual and we worked a lot in doing role-plays of how to get to know people, how to listen and to determine what is needed in our teaching. Even though role-playing involves some pretending - taking parts, it is amazing how much the Spirit of the Lord is with us in the process. We all learn a great deal in the process.

On Tuesday evening we attended a devotional, with Elder Caussé as the main speaker. His wife also spoke and talked about superheroes, especially missionaries. She spoke of the missionaries who converted her family in France. She spoke about how influential the missionaries are. He spoke about his experiences as a new Seventy, especially mentioning his experiences with traveling with President Packer to a Stake Conference. Elder Packer taught them principles, especially the second chapter of First Corinthians. The main theme is that we do no rely on our own wisdom in our work and teaching, but upon the Spirit. Humility is the key. We do not rely on our personal abilities, but upon God. He talked with us about being bold as missionaries, but bold in being true to the direction of the spirit, not in our own strength and knowledge. He told the story of Enzio Busche in his first encounter with the missionaries, especially that the elder was very positive, even when Enzio said he would not be interested in joining the church. Being bold is being humble and obedient. He quoted the end of D & C 121, about the strength we receive by being virtuous, giving us confidence through the spirit. He also quoted President Monson, "When you are on the Lord's errand, you are entitles to his help." At the end, he played a piano duet with a man he met in Rome, Italy, the music was an arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" and "The Spirit of God." It was wonderful.

We especially enjoyed getting to know the other missionary couples and some of the couples who came to give us guidance. One of the couples gave their name in the introduction, mentioning that the name, Finlinson, came from Oak City. I instantly realized that he must be a relative. I soon discovered that he is my second cousin, his grandmother, Ida Jane was the sister to my grandfather, Eddie Mathias Jacobson. We enjoyed talking about our shared ancestry and our similar mission assignments.

One of the couples in our "district" is Elder and Sister Towers. He has served as president of the Cambodia mission a number of years ago and will be serving with his wife in Hong Kong. They will be assigned to the Victoria 2nd Branch running the "Everyday" church. They will be taking care of setting up and running 3-hour block meetings on Tuesdays through Saturdays for the domestic workers, mostly from Philippines who work in the homes in Hong Kong. These women do not usually have Sunday's off.

This whole experience really gives us a spiritual boost in preparation for our upcoming service. Sister B and also learned better how to teach together. We are looking forward to a wonderful time in service.

The pictures in this blog entry are of people we spent time with this week. As you can probably imagine, this mission may not have the same type of landscape pictures that we had in our mission in Germany. Oh well. The experiences will still be wonderful.

This is our district, posing in front of the famous world map at the MTC:

The Fenskes, the Buchanans and the Towers.

My newly discovered second cousin and his wife.

Our district with our morning instructors, Sister Yazzie on the left end and Brother Smith on the right

Our afternoon instructors, Elders Swallow (l) and Teuscher(r).

The White Envelope ...

Well, the long anticipated white envelope arrived in the mail today.

We have been officially called to serve a mission again. We are excited!

We will be serving as full-time, set-apart missionaries in the Utah Salt Lake City South mission for 18 months. We are to serve as MLS, or Member, Leader Support missionaries. That means that we are going to serve while living at home. Our work will be in support of the Ward and Branch councils of the Wards and Branch within our own stake - focused on re-activation.

We have met others who are doing this same kind of mission and generally hear that it is a very rewarding, though difficult mission. Our bishop has already assigned us to work with some members and we have had some wonderful experiences in the work.

We will report at the MTC in Provo for 5 days of training, starting February 23rd.

As you can probably expect, the blogs in the future may not be quite as entertaining, since we are not traveling much and are within our own culture (basically). One of our units is a Spanish Branch, so we will also be involved with them.

We are very happy to again be serving the Lord in the capacity of missionaries. The blessings are in describable.

(Soon to be again)  Elder and Sister Buchanan

Getting caught up at the end of the year...

Well, as you can probably guess, we have been busy at home getting adjusted and caught up with things.

Of course, jet lag, along with some sickness, made it hard to get adjusted, but we are doing OK now. Both Shauna and I have been to all our doctors and are doing OK. It has been two years since we have been checked, so that was a good reason to see doctors and dentist, but we also pushed through mission papers and now have submitted everything, including the doctor reports.

We have had a wonderful time with family. The family served us a belated Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday following our return. Also, we have had a number of family activities and are loving it. Jon and his family came from Oregon the day after Christmas and have been staying with us most of the time before they return home at the end of this week.

Shauna and I received an assignment to visit some members of the ward as special representatives of him and we have enjoyed being back in service.

Also, shortly after arriving home, a young lady we met in Germany came to the US to see the marriage of her friend. She stayed with us a couple of days and was present at our homecoming Sacrament Meeting on the 14th.

I thought this picture of us arriving at the airport on the 2nd was good to see.

Here is Elisa as she visited us.

It was wonderful to see our mountains again. They are not the alps, but they are home.

Home again

I thought I should write something to let you all know we are home and getting adjusted to things after our mission. It has been a bit difficult getting up to speed, though we are quickly getting things done.

Here are a few farewell pictures we got just before leaving.

We arrived in the evening on Tuesday (Dec 2), very tired. I developed a bad cold just as we were leaving Ravensburg, so it was a bit harder to adjust, but nonetheless, we were very happy to see family as we were greeted at the airport in Salt Lake.

Since arriving, we tried to get some rest. The Jet lag really took its toll on us, especially me with my cold. Still, we were able to get our needed tasks accomplished, including Credit Union, getting new phones (send me email to get new phone numbers), replaced drivers licenses (Ravensburg made us surrender our US licenses in order to receive the German licenses), Car insurance, family visits, etc.
Actually, she was not able to get hers quite yet, but it is coming. Also, the insurance ran into a hiccup as well. Our sons worked to get us a new (2011) car, and it is very nice.

We were released as missionaries on Wednesday. That was difficult. We are no longer Elder and Sister B.

We are really missing our friends and loved ones in Ravensburg. Sister B. (she is still Sister B.) said yesterday that she really missed the German and did a run on DuoLingo. We have been able to do a little communicating with some of our people over email and Skype.

We have had two wonderful family activities so far. Our granddaughter was baptized on Saturday and many of the family were there.

Our youngest granddaughter still is not sure about us. She only saw us briefly in August, so we are just learning to know each other better.

Our wonderful granddaughter and her father - after the baptism.

We had a "Thanksgiving" dinner together with family on Sunday evening and all the family that live here were with us. It was a wonderful evening.

Thanks to everyone who has prayed for us and supported us through this transition. Next Sunday we have our mission report in our ward. I hope you all can be there to see us. We are meeting at our home afterwards.