Spouse's tree

is there a setting that I am missing? When I am signed in, I can see my whole tree but I can only see my wife but not her line. I'm sure it is because her parents are alive and so there are epitaxy issues but I think there should be something that can be implemented to fix it (if there isn't something already).

How I see it could work: I, from my screen, could request access to my spouse's line (the Church has records that shows that we are married). Then when my wife signs in, she gets a notification that access has been requested. She has the ability to approve the request or deny it (maybe she could even click an option to not allow this person to ever request in the case of a divorce or something). She would always be able to revoke access at a later date if needed also. Once she approves it, my family tree, of which my wife's family is a part of, is complete.

Thoughts? Help?

RBeatse wrote:When I am signed in, I can see my whole tree but I can only see my wife but not her line. I'm sure it is because her parents are alive

Correct. FamilyTree doesn't show anything about the living. Any "living" people added are placed in a special private area where only the person who added them can see them.

You could have her log in just to see if she sees her parents. (I suspect it doesn't even show her parents to her, but I could be wrong.)

But bottom line, I think you're going to have to manually add living people as needed to connect to the deceased. It's an issue with privacy laws, particularly in different countries, and not a technology issue.

RBeatse wrote:How I see it could work: I, from my screen, could request access to my spouse's line (the Church has records that shows that we are married). Then when my wife signs in, she gets a notification that access has been requested. She has the ability to approve the request or deny it

An interesting idea, but for legal reasons, I'd think it would be her parents that would have to approve access.

She can see her parents. I can see both of my parents (but not their marriage, go figure).

Even if I add the parents manually, will I be able to "link" them sufficiently to eventually have the rest of the tree fill in? If that is how you have to do it, then it would be nice to be able to designate records as "living bridges" (I made that up) so that they do not clutter up the rest of the database. For example, if I add my in laws and put in their parents, the database will have multiple versions of the same people.

As far as getting the parent's approval to add them to my tree, that makes perfect sense and could work also.

RBeatse wrote:Even if I add the parents manually, will I be able to "link" them sufficiently to eventually have the rest of the tree fill in?

As far as I know, it's all manual until you add the first deceased generation to your tree. So in your case, you'd probably have to add your wife's parents and link them to her grandparents and then you'll be set. (I'm assuming her grandparents are deceased.)

I like the concept of "living bridges" as that's exactly why you would add them to your tree - not to complete your tree, or to add decedents, or siblings, but to bridge you to the deceased.

RBeatse wrote:Even if I add the parents manually, will I be able to "link" them sufficiently to eventually have the rest of the tree fill in? If that is how you have to do it, then it would be nice to be able to designate records as "living bridges" (I made that up) so that they do not clutter up the rest of the database. For example, if I add my in laws and put in their parents, the database will have multiple versions of the same people.

Actually, what you are talking about is exactly how FamilySearch works already. When you add living people, they are in what is officially called your "private space." Those are records just for your use, which can certainly function as "living bridges" if you want to think about it that way. One of the main reasons for private spaces is to bridge the gap between the living and the dead; once you've connected to deceased people, the rest of the tree is automatically connected.

Since these records in private spaces are visible only to the owner of that private space, they don't really clutter up the database, at least in any way that would impact anyone else. Your version really has nothing to do with your brother-in-law's version of the same people.

Thanks for the help and clarification.

Isn't it possible to have have it be like linked or Facebook and you can request permission to add an individual and they can then accept you in return? That seems like a good way to get over the privacy issue

I agree that there ought to be a way to add one's spouse's line without typing in all of their and their parents and their grandparents' information. It is especially discouraging to those of us in the younger generation. In order for my husband and I to be able to learn from and research the other's family history, we both have to manually add several people. All of our parents and 5/8 grandparents are living, so it's a bigger task than it seems. Working within international law to give people permission to see their living in-laws would be highly beneficial, though I understand that those reading this post in the tech world likely don't have the ability to make that happen. But if you can pass on the fact that there is support and a "need" for this feature, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all you do!

victoria.k.ison wrote:I agree that there ought to be a way to add one's spouse's line without typing in all of their and their parents and their grandparents' information. ... But if you can pass on the fact that there is support and a "need" for this feature, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all you do!

Most likely, the best way to get your suggestion looked at by decision makers would be to use the Feedback link at the bottom of some FamilySearch pages. If you click on the 'Home' tab in the upper left-hand corner and then scroll to the very bottom of the page, it's right above the copyright notice, third from the left. I would suggest making it very clear that you want your suggestion considered for possible future implementation. Otherwise, the response to feedback may take a short-term view rather than the longer-term view.

Meanwhile, a possible partial workaround comes to mind. (Disclaimer: I have not actually tried the exact idea, but I understand the general concept "should" work.) If there are multiple people who would need to enter the same information about living people, much/most of the duplicate data entry can be avoided by uploading that information in the form of a GEDCOM file. The GEDCOM file could be created once and then shared among relevant family members. Each FamilySearch user with a copy of the GEDCOM file can upload it into his/her own "private space". A few posts up, aebrown gave an great explanation of how "private spaces" currently work in FamilySearch. In the FamilySearch Help Center, I see that a little manual work will still need to be done to link the records from the uploaded GEDCOM file into your own tree. However, that process should at least be faster than manually typing in everything.

Now, how to get a GEDCOM file? The PAF program can do it, as can many other local genealogy programs. There used to be a program called Get My Ancestors that could download information from FamilySearch into a GEDCOM file, but I understand it no longer works. There may be other options that I'm not aware of. If you have a Family History Center in your stake, someone there should be able to help find a way to create a GEDCOM file. Otherwise, FamilySearch help should be able to help.

I'm sure others have much better ideas of how to do the GEDCOM thing. Please correct/update/improve on the above suggestion.

victoria.k.ison wrote:Working within international law to give people permission to see their living in-laws would be highly beneficial,

I suspect that's the issue. Showing information on living people is legally risky. Getting their permission to be shown would be so time consuming, it would be far faster to enter them yourself.

In turning the hearts to the fathers, I wouldn't be that quick to skip over the living. They're going to be the best source to get you connected to the first generation of the deceased.

victoria.k.ison wrote:It is especially discouraging to those of us in the younger generation. In order for my husband and I to be able to learn from and research the other's family history, we both have to manually add several people. All of our parents and 5/8 grandparents are living, so it's a bigger task than it seems.

Keep in mind that you don't have to actually add any information to the living persons in your private space. Private space is for "place-holders" so since they are living all you need to do is add the name and gender to create the living-person record (even an incomplete name will do).

This isn’t much of a reply but just another question! When my husband is logged into his family tree, he can see his dad and all the ancestors linked to his side, but nothing shows up past his mom on her side. She said they’ve done all the work for her parents and grandparents and so on, but nothing is showing up besides her. How can we fix this?

jessneb24 wrote:This isn’t much of a reply but just another question! When my husband is logged into his family tree, he can see his dad and all the ancestors linked to his side, but nothing shows up past his mom on her side. She said they’ve done all the work for her parents and grandparents and so on, but nothing is showing up besides her. How can we fix this?

Please keep in mind that when I enter information about a living person, that information is private to me, and nobody else can see that information. If that person later passes away, and I add death information, that information I entered becomes publicly visible. For example, several years ago, my wife and I had to each/separately enter information about her (living) parents.

If I understand the question correctly, the quicker solution is to add information about each living person in the tree. That's hopefully going to be much quicker than to wait for those people to pass away so that the information someone else entered about them becomes publicly visible.

Did that answer the question well enough?

In other words, it's probably going to be up to you to link to the first generation of deceased ancestors. Once that's done, the rest of your tree should show up.

Not quite! On my family tree is shows both my parents and their parents and so on back hundreds of years even though both my parents are alive. My husbands family tree shows his dad even though his alive and his parents and so on back hundreds of years. His mom’s side only shows his mom and won’t show her parents or any other relative on that side even though they’ve all passed away and had their work down but he can’t see any of that. So why would on mine it let me see my parents (even though they’re alive) and the rest of my ancestors, but his tree will only show his dads side. Does that make better sense?

And I should clarify that is when he’s logged in seperately and now when I’m logged in. I know I won’t be able to see his family while logged in my own account. But he should be able to see his mothers side too if he’s able to see his fathers and I can see all my mom and dads ancestors and family

jessneb24 wrote:And I should clarify that is when he’s logged in seperately and now when I’m logged in. I know I won’t be able to see his family while logged in my own account. But he should be able to see his mothers side too if he’s able to see his fathers and I can see all my mom and dads ancestors and family

I believe I understand your description. It's fully consistent with what russellhltn and I and the FamilySearch documentation are saying. Any record of a living person/ancestor is in the private space of the patron/user who entered it. Only that patron/user who entered that private-space record can see it. In contrast, records of deceased ancestors are in publicly visible space, and everyone can see those records.

For example, my wife and I see separate versions of her living mother (each version in our own private space). The PID my wife sees for her mother and the PID I see for my wife's mother are different, because they are completely separate records. Nothing that I enter in my private space record of my wife's mother can be seen by anyone else. When my wife and I (with appropriate permission) originally entered information about her father, he was still living, and so my wife and I each had separate versions of my wife's father's information. When my wife's father passed away and my wife and I each entered his death information, those records became publicly visible and the now-duplicate records could be merged into one combined record.

The version your husband sees of your husband's father (and any other living ancestors) is in his private space. Only he can see that record of a living ancestor. Evidently, he entered that information (into his private space) some time back.

The version you see of your parents (and any other living ancestors) is in your private space. Only you can see that record of a living ancestor. Evidently, you entered that information (into your private space) some time back.

In order for you to see your husband's ancestors, you need to enter a version of each of your husband's living ancestors into your private space. Then, link those new records in your private space to your husband's deceased ancestors (who are in publicly visible space). Then, you will be able to see your husband's entire tree.

It sounds like your husband can see only his father's side of his tree but not his mother's side. If that is the case, then he will need to enter information into his private space for each living ancestor and link those records (in his private space) to the deceased ancestors (in publicly visible space). Then, he will be able to see his entire tree.

Did that make a little more sense of the way the tree works?

(Edited: Added a bit more clarification about info evidently entered into private space.)

rmrichesjr wrote: Evidently, he entered that information (into his private space) some time back.

That isn't necessarily true. Information on living parents or children can also come from church membership records. But if his mother is not a member then church records wouldn't have full information of her. Likewise if his grand parents were not members church records might not have the correct link to their family search records. Or church records might not have his mother's parent's information correctly recorded even if they are members.

But the easiest solution is still to add the links in his private space. But if his mother and her parents are members he may want to have his mother check with her ward clerk to make sure her record has correct information for her parents.

eblood66 wrote: That isn't necessarily true. Information on living parents or children can also come from church membership records. ...

While some Family Tree records do come from Church membership records, isn't it only for the user/patron himself/herself and for deceased people that Church membership information is visible in Family Tree? I had understood that other living members' membership record information is not visible in Family Tree.

To test that theory in practice, a very limited statistical sample of two people (other than myself) does not show any information from Church membership records in Family Tree. Both of my parents (both still living) have had Church membership records since well before development of Family Tree began. However, when viewing my parents' person records (which exist in my private space) with full details opened, the only pieces of information visible are those I entered myself. In my own person record, the information shows as having been entered by FamilySearch.

Back to the original questions, when viewing the person record of a living individual, there is a pinkish "Private Person" banner near the top of the page if the record is in private space. That banner can help clarify whether a record is private or publicly visible. Another supporting check is to compare PID strings. If two different users/patrons see the same PID, that means the record is in public space. If the PID strings are different, then they are different records.

rmrichesjr wrote:However, when viewing my parents' person records (which exist in my private space) with full details opened, the only pieces of information visible are those I entered myself. In my own person record, the information shows as having been entered by FamilySearch.

The information from membership records is very limited. For parents (and grandparents) it consists of only their names, the link to yourself and the link to their parents. For children under 18 it also shows their birth date (but that isn't shown for adult children). But for many members this information will link them to their deceased ancestors without having to enter any information themselves.

That's a very convenient feature. It would seem it must have been added more recently, because I'm pretty sure no information about my member parents was visible until I entered it myself in about 2014. That feature would make it much more convenient for new users to get started.

rmrichesjr wrote:That's a very convenient feature. It would seem it must have been added more recently, because I'm pretty sure no information about my member parents was visible until I entered it myself in about 2014. That feature would make it much more convenient for new users to get started.

As far as I know this was a feature of Family Tree since it's inception (and I think of New Family Search before it). At very least I was able to see this information without entering anything when I first accessed Family Tree just after it was released (which I believe was around 2012 or 2013). However, it's quite possible that information doesn't always transfer over correctly. My son's account shows a similar situation to the original posters. We've never entered any information using his account but it shows us (his parents) and all his grandparents with links further up the tree except that it doesn't show any ancestors of his maternal grandmother even though she and they were all members. And even more strangely my wife's account does show her mother's ancestors and I'm pretty sure we never entered links. So apparently in her private space the information was correctly populated but in his it wasn't complete.

jessneb24 wrote:Not quite! On my family tree is shows both my parents and their parents and so on back hundreds of years even though both my parents are alive. My husbands family tree shows his dad even though his alive and his parents and so on back hundreds of years. His mom’s side only shows his mom and won’t show her parents or any other relative on that side even though they’ve all passed away and had their work down but he can’t see any of that. So why would on mine it let me see my parents (even though they’re alive) and the rest of my ancestors, but his tree will only show his dads side. Does that make better sense?

FamilySearch can only link persons in Family Tree using membership records to the extent that the persons in FamilyTree (living or dead) are actually linked to membership records. Certain living person records are connected to membership records (for example. my Family Tree record is connected to my living parents because they are both members of the Church, their records on Family Tree are connected to their membership records, and my membership record correctly lists my connection to my parents). But if any of those factors are missing, Family Tree will not automatically link a person to his or her parents.

In this case, there could be several reasons why your husband's mother's record is not linked to her deceased parents. Perhaps her record was created manually (not automatically based on membership records). There's no way for you to know exactly why, but it doesn't really matter. No matter the reason, you can quite easily fix the issue by adding her parents to her. Or it might be easier to go to one of her parents' records and add her as a child to them -- the result would be the same. Once you link her to her parents, then she will automatically be linked to all the generations beyond them.

The problem I see is the massive number of duplicate entries we are creating. I come from a very large family, and each of them has to create me manually for me to be on their tree. When I die there could be 200-300 versions of me that will have to be merged together. We are creating a problem for the generations to come.

The solution I see:
Let us link to someone living (like a spouse or parent) with their permission so we don't create a duplicate. Limit the information shown for any living people in their tree to "information that is highly available to the public", and for the rest just show "This information is not available to you". Or maybe even just a placeholder entry that says "Living relative: Details not available". As birth certificates and marriage certificates are public record I don't think an entry on my tree with just the name and the rest of the details hidden would be a big privacy problem, and that way I could link to my wife and see full information for the deceased members of her tree and limited information for the living, all with creating no duplicates. We would be able to verify that we don't have missing entries in our current generations as well, which is currently done by creating duplicates.

But maybe I am wrong. I'm not a lawyer, just a person concerned with the issue we are creating for our children.

@kevbel71, I fully agree with you. This has been my concern for years! You should be able to send a “family”request (like a Facebook friend request”) and if they agree to it, then your records are shared.

The problem I see is that FS is all about the deceased, yet people keep trying to use it to document the living. In the immortal words of Monty Python, "I'm not dead yet". Inputting information about the living is fraught with privacy and legal concerns. My personal advice is to only input the living to the extent needed to link to the deceased. Typically that would be living parents in order to link to the deceased ancestors.

Documenting the living for future genealogists is something that I don't think we've been given guidance on. *IF* there is a process for making the living in FS visible in the future, it's probably going to based on something like a 120 years from the birth date (since there will be no one to record death dates). By that time, it's likely to be old news.

But the problem with that logic is that we are adding work for our future generations. If I put a picture in FS and tag my (deceased) grandfather in a picture and my brother and I happen to be in the picture, I can tag me but if I tag my brother I have to have added him to “my” FS and then others do the same but we are all tagging the person with multiple person records. Once either one of us dies, there will be multiple ID's tagged to it.

If we don’t put living people data into FS, then our ancestors will get a picture with my grandfather tagged but not me and then they have to do the work, when I know who it is.

kevbel71 wrote:I come from a very large family, and each of them has to create me manually for me to be on their tree.

kevbel71 wrote:Limit the information shown for any living people in their tree ...

kevbel71 wrote:As birth certificates and marriage certificates are public record I don't think an entry on my tree ...

kevbel71 wrote:I could link to my wife and see full information for the deceased members of her tree ...

FamilySearch Family Tree is a single tree, a collaborative database which we all share, similar to a Wiki. I can see and modify every deceased person on "your tree" and you can see and modify every deceased person on "my tree".
If you want to have full control over your personal family tree, then you should be using another service or FamilySearch partner, such as Ancestry.com to manage your family records. In your Ancestry family tree, you can freely add living individuals, who are displayed as "private" to the rest of the world. You have full control over the visibility of records in your Ancestry tree.

kevbel71 wrote:The problem I see is the massive number of duplicate entries we are creating. I come from a very large family, and each of them has to create me manually for me to be on their tree. When I die there could be 200-300 versions of me that will have to be merged together. We are creating a problem for the generations to come.

...

I think it will all work out okay.

There are already many deceased persons who are combinations of many dozens to a few hundreds of component records. Early on, nearly a decade ago, the software/hardware infrastructure got slow on combinations of more than about 150 component records. Since then, the hardware and software have become much faster. By the time the 200-300 versions of you become publicly visible, the system will probably be able to handle it. If not, changes could be made to the system to better handle that situation.

The manual effort of combining the duplicate records will be spread out broadly enough that it won't be a serious problem. Each user who entered a version of you will need to combine their private version of you with the record that comes from official Church records (and the other once-private versions of you that have already been combined in). If that manual effort becomes too much on a wide scale, the software could be changed to automate much/most/all of the combining of duplicate records.

While I'm not involved with the software development of Family Tree, I have worked in software development for enough years, and I saw enough of the thought and inspiration that went into the NewFamilySearch beta and deployment to be very confident that sufficient thought and planning has already been done on the issue of dozens to perhaps a few hundreds of versions of each current Church member who will someday pass on.

If my spouse (living), has their separate “private” account and they provide me with their 9 digit account number, shouldn’t I be able to link them? I would be upholding privacy laws and getting their legal permission. Or when they give me the 9 digit account number, couldn’t I enter it, then it would send that account an accept or reject decision, thereby granting permission legally?

MatthewKBChambers wrote:If my spouse (living), has their separate “private” account and they provide me with their 9 digit account number, shouldn’t I be able to link them? I would be upholding privacy laws and getting their legal permission. Or when they give me the 9 digit account number, couldn’t I enter it, then it would send that account an accept or reject decision, thereby granting permission legally?

The problem is, not only would you become connected to your spouse, but you would then become connected to any other living relatives that they've entered in (who may not have given permission) – or, FamilySearch would have to provide a way for those people to not show up.