Genealogy Chat

I have two families where the husband of one family lost his wife and the wife of the second family lost her husband. This was fine - having inputted all the respective children etc. I discovered that the daughter of the man married the son of the woman and to add to the confusion the man and woman got together too. So I have a a pair who are now husband and wife and their children husband and wife. My problem is, having inoputted all the details from their respective first marriages, how do I now show them as a couple. If I try to add a new spouse, a new page opens in readiness with room for the spouses name but as you can see I have already got the spouse entered with their own family and this would duplicate it. I am going round in circles trying to sort this out in my head. I do not want to have to take all the children out (and the next generation on) to enable myself to indicate this double marriage. Has anyone any experience of this problem and if so, how oin earth did you get round it.

Sorry to those who do not have family tree maker and will not know what on earth I am talking about.

Which version of FTM do you have? Mine is 2005 and will do some complicated things, but I've never tried that one!

If you enter the wife's name on the new spouse screen, it will probably ask you if she is the same person as in the other marriage. If you say Yes, you may then get options as to what you can do. Or not, as the case may be!! You can cancel at any time if things aren't doing what you want.

Someone with a more recent version will probably be able to advise you better.

Good Luck!!

Hi Andysmum - mine is 2006 and I have read the accompanying book and looked under 'people' and there seem to be several things but none look to be anything like I need. I am reluctant to click on them and see what they do in case I mess the whole thing up. If I enter one of the individuals on the spouse page all it asks is does this person have children - well they both do !! I will have to read through the book again and again to try and solve this as I really do not want to start from scratch. If I eventually manage to show the two parents marriage I still have the problem of joing the two 'kids' together without messing it up as well. Oooh I'm tearing my hair out !! Thanks for trying

Is it possible to use the "merge" function ? I am not very good at explaining
:-(

For instance:

If you have one family of SMITH and one on JONES-enter the surviving SMITH as the next spouse of the surviving JONES but only enter the basic info {date of birth or something } then go to the "merge" function and it will show both of the entries you have for JONES but the one with the most detail is the one you want to keep {ie sources} so you will know the difference

Make sure the arrow points to right one then press "merge"

Clear as mud !!

Margaret

If you are able to do this the 2 famillies will show with their correct partners and you should be able to merge the respective children in the same way

I have often done that with FamilytreeMaker.

Simply add the new spouse even though that person is already in your tree. The program will ask you if that's the same person as the one already entered. If you say yes it will merge the 2 individuals. If I remember correctly it will ask if you want to transfer the children to the new spouse. The answer to that would be no.

You can enter the same person more than once in your tree then merge them using the "Merge 2 specific individuals" option under the "People" heading.

Thank you both so much. I have spent hours trying to puzzle this out. I will write down what you have told me and see if I can do it. BUT before that being as I am not terrifically good at all this, I will handwrite all the info just in case I make a mess !! Thanks again.

Can you make a copy of the tree? That way if it does go wrong, you still have the original.

Yes Detective - I could do a 'back-up' to a disc. Good idea !