How to modify family connections when you’ve gone wrong!  Putting the children with the wrong husband, or the family with the wrong cousin. Family Historian has an excellent method to deal with this in the replace link option.

The video shows how to use the Focus windowThe Focus Window is the primary workspace window.  It displays information about a chosen person, called the 'Focus Person'. to accomplish the task, but it’s also possible to use a diagram and the property boxThe Property Box is the primary window for data entry and for viewing details of stored records.  It is used with records of all types.   to do the same thing, as described below.

Step 1 ~ Who do I need to move?

This is often the tricky bit, but at the end of the day it does not normally matter which way you do it.

The common problems are:

• One of the children is with the second husband and they belong to an earlier marriage.
  • Change the child’s Family as Child record.
• I have the wrong spouse with the family; this one normally occurs where two similarly named men are in the same placeAccording to GEDCOM, a Place should hold "The jurisdictional name of the place where the event took place…"   at the same time.
  • Change the Husband/Wife of the Family Record.
• This whole branch does not belong to me.
  • In this case you can simply “clear the link” rather than moving them.

Step 2 ~ Changing the Link

Here is a typical problem. John Smith has two Grandsons called John Smith. You have discovered Mary is “married” to the wrong one.

First we open the Property Box Dialogue for Mary and go to the All tab.

Click on the small box next to the Spouse Family to open up the family. Then right click on the Name of the Husband and select Link To Existing Individual RecordEvery person in your tree will have a single Individual Record, which holds all the information about that individual that you have entered.  You can view and edit Individual records in the Property Box Dialogue. as shown.

Next select the correct person from the record list.

This will change the spouse to the person sleected as shown on the left.

Tips

• Always save or backup your file first, just in case you get in a muddle
• Double check you have the right one. With the Example above there are a lot of Johns to choose from.