THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! You can't have a family tree without making the occasional mistake. Looked all over for a method to FIND floating trees, but only found how to CREATE them and where they can actually be useful. Nothing about FINDING and cleaning up my tree until I found this video! Spent the last two days cleaning up my tree with RootsMagic and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. Count me as you latest subscriber!
This video provided some eye-opening results! I have worked to keep my tree clean and well-sourced, but I had no idea there were many disconnected individuals. My tree has ~6100 profiles. Using the method described for generating reports in Family Tree Maker, I found 32 individuals who had "broken their moorings" and were adrift. Those same profiles existed in the tree, all properly connected, but their ghosts were wandering aimlessly. Thanks for the directions on cleaning out the stragglers.
I wish I had that tool when I cleaned up my tree! I now keep a 2nd tree where I work on my DNA matches or trying to build branches for certain surnames to see if there is any connection. I keep the 2nd tree private and unsearchable, so my assumptions don't mistakenly get copied by anyone.
That's a great strategy to be sure. Sorry I didn't make this sooner. A viewer sent the question to me just a few weeks ago and I loved it. If you have other struggles, send me a video idea suggestion through this form. www.familyhistoryfanatics.com/contact
I, too , keep a private, unsearchable “quick and dirty tree.” I’d go crazy trying to connect all the floaters in it! Lol! If I have any in my main tree-well, maybe they will get reconnected someday. If not 🤷🏻♀️.
Sometimes I keep floating trees in order to show how someone does NOT belong in my tree. I often do this when I find mistakes others have made and I try to correct it by putting a floating tree in mine.
That's a reason I had not heard before. Again, the floating tree being in yours is intentional and likely should remind since you are aware of the purpose. But it's always nice to ensure you have no unplanned floating trees, correct?
@@FamilyHistoryFanatics yes it is! When I first started on my tree in ancestry, I would delete a person and thought it would take care of all the people connected to them, but later found out they were all floating, so I took a week to go through my whole tree to take them out.
OK, after waiting for all the reports from my BIG file, Yes, the first suggestion works, but it only finds Individuals, not groups. But the second suggestion finally worked after waiting hours for the report to complete, and it DOES show groups. BTW, FTM didn't use to work for the extensive reports my file would generate. It would just hang there, even after hours. But apparently, FTM fixed something and it now works! YEAH! And I got all of my many Unrelated folks to delete! Thanks for the tips!
You discuss finding floating trees in other programs but just how to delete (which is a pretty basic function) in ancestry but not how to find them in ancestry, so I'm guessing we have to again ump through hoops to export out to find the data and then go back in order to remove it?
Ancestry has this deleting tool in their app !! Go to your tree that you want to edit, click on the search button, then click on the arrows in the upper right corner. Then there are 7 alternatives on what search You want to do . The last alternative is a list of detached people in the tree ! Greetings from Kirsten in Sweden.
Kirsten, do you mean the Search button on the Ancestry bar at the top of the screen which brings up a blank search? I don't see any arrows in the upper right corner.
@@henryospencer It's on the smartphone app. I would suggest cross referencing with the website to insure you don't delete a floater that you may want to keep.
It's a little ridiculous for what ancestry charges that there's so many things we need to do that they won't let us - like simply finding unattached persons or viewing our tree fully or better printing options. We have to export to various other places like myheritage or family tree analyzer. We have to make 25 steps to do something that should be a simple drop-down selection.
I tested both examples of finding floating trees in Family Tree Maker. In the first example, that works for only single person floating trees. If you have more than one person in a floating tree, it will not find it. In the second example, I couldn't get it to show any. I must have done something wrong. I have a large tree (over 32,500 people in it), so the second method takes a long time to run. I don't know if the size of the tree has anything to do with the fact that it didn't find any.
When I need to do several in the same level (like your Thomas and his siblings), I right click on each of them to open to their profile page in a different tab and then just delete the one in question in each tab, closing the tab afterwards, so I don't have to go find the next level up again via tree search (or at least so I only have to do it that way when I mess up on what order I visit the tabs) "Do you have strange people floating around in your family tree?" --- Hey now, no need to get personal about my relatives LMAO!
Ha, ha! Just so you know, I have many nuts on my tree. They're Ohio State Buckeyes after all. So, "Strange" is said with fondness. No judgement here. And THANK YOU for the tip to open browsers to 'make note' of those you need to delete. That works really well. Sorry I didn't think of it.
@@FamilyHistoryFanatics I typed that on my laptop and so didn't have access to image emoticons (& couldn't remember the ASCII for 🤪 to indicate I was being silly) You're a good egg, Devon Noel! And glad my tip was useful! PS: you still claim the Buckeyes as kin? That might qualify ya for sainthood 😂
Good video, but I have a problem doing reports on my FTM, I think because my file is SO LARGE. I have over 27,000 names. When I try to do reports like the 2 you showed, FTM just goes into a long loop, never generating a full report. In fact, it shows 3 pages and just hangs there, for either one of our suggestions. I'd sure like to find unrelated people, but unless I happen upon them, no luck.
Around time 6:49 why are you only showing how to delete individuals using pedigree view? The whole process is so much easier in family view because you can see all the siblings and other connected individuals. There is no need to note any sibling names because you can see them.
Please confirm that I showed two ways to delete. I started with pedigree view because it does have the problem of bumping you out of the tree and you have to search all over again. If I remember the script correctly, I said the other way to delete is from the family tree view is it's a little better. Having worked with many individuals you might be less familiar with the platform and keeping track of persons as you seem to be, I will always recommend people make notes. It's so easy to make a mistake and get lost. But if you make notes, you can always ensure that you accomplish your goal. Is that not so?
The only way to connect floating trees is to 1. Find them. 2. Figure out how someone in the floating tree is related to the part of the tree that wasn't floating and link them together. I'm not sure if I'm helping you understand or not.
I am such a newbie when it comes to understanding all of this. I know I have floating trees. If you are using Family Tree Maker, will deleting floating trees delete 2nd and 3rd spouses and their entire families? I seem to have a lot of Italian and other relatives that married again after the death of a spouse and had new families. When I sync on Family Tree Maker, I am syncing my Ancestry tree to my Family Tree Maker instead of the other way around. Am I correct? I have never done Roots Magic and know nother about it. By the way, on Roots Tech seminar last February, I found out that you were a distant cousin of mine. I don't know how far removed, but I found that fascinating. Thank you for all of your info. It is greatly appreciated. Kim
Let's focus on FTM only since that's what you are using. When you discover unconnected or unrelated person to you, I would recommend you follow the paths within Family Tree Maker to ensure these people are whether you want to keep in your database or not. For those you do decide to delete, you can delete the persons on Ancestry or Family Tree Maker. If you're worried about making a mistake, I would TURN OFF the automatic sync of Family Tree Maker to Ancestry. Then, using your list of people to delete, particularly 2nd and 3rd spouses of aunts and uncles, work your way through deleting them in Family Tree Maker. Here is a link to how to delete in FTM familytreemakerhelp.com/delete-multiple-persons-in-ftm-2019/ When you have deleted everyone you want, then click on the sync tree to Ancestry option and Family Tree Maker will delete the folks from your Ancestry tree.
I use Reunion for Mac. They call floating trees “Islands”. I have several of these, non of which I would delete. One of my “Islands” contains over a thousand people all related through my DNA matches, but as yet I have not concluded exactly my relationship to them. I have linked these DNA matches on Ancestry and await a time when I can connect them to the rest of my Ancestry tree. At the moment it is not possible to sync Reunion with Ancestry. I would not want to sync with Ancestry if it meant sharing all my data. When you sync Ancestry to FTM or RM is it possible to define what gets synced, or is it a case of all or nothing?
With RootsMagic, after the first initial sync, which would be from your Ancestry tree to RootsMagic if you do not want to share everything, then you can control what you share to RootsMagic. Perhaps that's one of the reasons RootsMagic is a manual update to Ancestry rather than a full sync. I hadn't thought of that. Family Tree Maker could likely allow you to control what you share using their manual sync option. I'm not as familiar with it. I hope you know that the floating tree deletion is not for intentional floating trees. Our viewer was hoping to delete ones that shouldn't be in the tree or were left behind by mistake.
Here's a problem I ran into. I entered a large tree going over 100 years. In many families there were between 8-14 children per family. In 3 of these cases where 3 parents had died, their spouse remarried a person already in the family. Yes 3 inter marriages within the family. Then those couples may have produced more children. So some people assigned the offspring to the first couple not the amended couple. When I drew this tree on a giant piece of paper there were 3 crosses.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! You can't have a family tree without making the occasional mistake. Looked all over for a method to FIND floating trees, but only found how to CREATE them and where they can actually be useful. Nothing about FINDING and cleaning up my tree until I found this video! Spent the last two days cleaning up my tree with RootsMagic and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. Count me as you latest subscriber!
This video provided some eye-opening results! I have worked to keep my tree clean and well-sourced, but I had no idea there were many disconnected individuals. My tree has ~6100 profiles. Using the method described for generating reports in Family Tree Maker, I found 32 individuals who had "broken their moorings" and were adrift. Those same profiles existed in the tree, all properly connected, but their ghosts were wandering aimlessly. Thanks for the directions on cleaning out the stragglers.
Yay!!!!! I'm so happy to have helped to find some folks and get them squared away.
Great information. I need to clean up planned and un-planned floating trees. Thank you.
I'm glad I could demonstrate how to do that.
I wish I had that tool when I cleaned up my tree! I now keep a 2nd tree where I work on my DNA matches or trying to build branches for certain surnames to see if there is any connection. I keep the 2nd tree private and unsearchable, so my assumptions don't mistakenly get copied by anyone.
That's a great strategy to be sure. Sorry I didn't make this sooner. A viewer sent the question to me just a few weeks ago and I loved it. If you have other struggles, send me a video idea suggestion through this form. www.familyhistoryfanatics.com/contact
I, too , keep a private, unsearchable “quick and dirty tree.” I’d go crazy trying to connect all the floaters in it! Lol! If I have any in my main tree-well, maybe they will get reconnected someday. If not 🤷🏻♀️.
Good practice.
Sometimes I keep floating trees in order to show how someone does NOT belong in my tree. I often do this when I find mistakes others have made and I try to correct it by putting a floating tree in mine.
That's a reason I had not heard before. Again, the floating tree being in yours is intentional and likely should remind since you are aware of the purpose. But it's always nice to ensure you have no unplanned floating trees, correct?
@@FamilyHistoryFanatics yes it is! When I first started on my tree in ancestry, I would delete a person and thought it would take care of all the people connected to them, but later found out they were all floating, so I took a week to go through my whole tree to take them out.
OK, after waiting for all the reports from my BIG file, Yes, the first suggestion works, but it only finds Individuals, not groups. But the second suggestion finally worked after waiting hours for the report to complete, and it DOES show groups. BTW, FTM didn't use to work for the extensive reports my file would generate. It would just hang there, even after hours. But apparently, FTM fixed something and it now works! YEAH!
And I got all of my many Unrelated folks to delete! Thanks for the tips!
I'm so happy the different tips worked. Yay!
You discuss finding floating trees in other programs but just how to delete (which is a pretty basic function) in ancestry but not how to find them in ancestry, so I'm guessing we have to again ump through hoops to export out to find the data and then go back in order to remove it?
Ancestry has this deleting tool in their app !! Go to your tree that you want to edit, click on the search button, then click on the arrows in the upper right corner. Then there are 7 alternatives on what search You want to do . The last alternative is a list of detached people in the tree ! Greetings from Kirsten in Sweden.
Howdy! Thanks for sharing another way to delete. I do hope folks use caution.
Kirsten, do you mean the Search button on the Ancestry bar at the top of the screen which brings up a blank search? I don't see any arrows in the upper right corner.
@@henryospencer It's on the smartphone app. I would suggest cross referencing with the website to insure you don't delete a floater that you may want to keep.
@@RonAck01 thanks Ron. I Agee with you.
No arrows here either. Appreciate the effort but no help at all here! And USING the smartphone app.
It drives me mental that Ancestry have no built-in functionality for this...
I'm so sorry that you're going mental. All I can say is you're not alone. I hope this was helpful and you will stay out of the looney bin.
It's a little ridiculous for what ancestry charges that there's so many things we need to do that they won't let us - like simply finding unattached persons or viewing our tree fully or better printing options. We have to export to various other places like myheritage or family tree analyzer. We have to make 25 steps to do something that should be a simple drop-down selection.
Whoops! The first suggestion DOES work after waiting a while because the actual report is shorter than the second suggestion.
I need to do this! Thank you for explain how!
Any time!
Great video devon. I may have some floating trees. It was my niece's birthday today, hence i missed it live.
Happy birthday niece. We'll catch you next time. Good look finding the floating trees that you DON'T want in your database.
I tested both examples of finding floating trees in Family Tree Maker. In the first example, that works for only single person floating trees. If you have more than one person in a floating tree, it will not find it. In the second example, I couldn't get it to show any. I must have done something wrong.
I have a large tree (over 32,500 people in it), so the second method takes a long time to run. I don't know if the size of the tree has anything to do with the fact that it didn't find any.
When I need to do several in the same level (like your Thomas and his siblings), I right click on each of them to open to their profile page in a different tab and then just delete the one in question in each tab, closing the tab afterwards, so I don't have to go find the next level up again via tree search (or at least so I only have to do it that way when I mess up on what order I visit the tabs)
"Do you have strange people floating around in your family tree?" --- Hey now, no need to get personal about my relatives
LMAO!
Ha, ha! Just so you know, I have many nuts on my tree. They're Ohio State Buckeyes after all. So, "Strange" is said with fondness. No judgement here.
And THANK YOU for the tip to open browsers to 'make note' of those you need to delete. That works really well. Sorry I didn't think of it.
@@FamilyHistoryFanatics I typed that on my laptop and so didn't have access to image emoticons (& couldn't remember the ASCII for 🤪 to indicate I was being silly)
You're a good egg, Devon Noel!
And glad my tip was useful!
PS: you still claim the Buckeyes as kin? That might qualify ya for sainthood 😂
Good video, but I have a problem doing reports on my FTM, I think because my file is SO LARGE. I have over 27,000 names. When I try to do reports like the 2 you showed, FTM just goes into a long loop, never generating a full report. In fact, it shows 3 pages and just hangs there, for either one of our suggestions. I'd sure like to find unrelated people, but unless I happen upon them, no luck.
Around time 6:49 why are you only showing how to delete individuals using pedigree view? The whole process is so much easier in family view because you can see all the siblings and other connected individuals. There is no need to note any sibling names because you can see them.
Please confirm that I showed two ways to delete. I started with pedigree view because it does have the problem of bumping you out of the tree and you have to search all over again. If I remember the script correctly, I said the other way to delete is from the family tree view is it's a little better.
Having worked with many individuals you might be less familiar with the platform and keeping track of persons as you seem to be, I will always recommend people make notes. It's so easy to make a mistake and get lost. But if you make notes, you can always ensure that you accomplish your goal. Is that not so?
Is there a way to connect floating trees?
The only way to connect floating trees is to
1. Find them.
2. Figure out how someone in the floating tree is related to the part of the tree that wasn't floating and link them together.
I'm not sure if I'm helping you understand or not.
I am such a newbie when it comes to understanding all of this. I know I have floating trees. If you are using Family Tree Maker, will deleting floating trees delete 2nd and 3rd spouses and their entire families? I seem to have a lot of Italian and other relatives that married again after the death of a spouse and had new families. When I sync on Family Tree Maker, I am syncing my Ancestry tree to my Family Tree Maker instead of the other way around. Am I correct? I have never done Roots Magic and know nother about it. By the way, on Roots Tech seminar last February, I found out that you were a distant cousin of mine. I don't know how far removed, but I found that fascinating. Thank you for all of your info. It is greatly appreciated. Kim
Let's focus on FTM only since that's what you are using.
When you discover unconnected or unrelated person to you, I would recommend you follow the paths within Family Tree Maker to ensure these people are whether you want to keep in your database or not.
For those you do decide to delete, you can delete the persons on Ancestry or Family Tree Maker. If you're worried about making a mistake, I would TURN OFF the automatic sync of Family Tree Maker to Ancestry.
Then, using your list of people to delete, particularly 2nd and 3rd spouses of aunts and uncles, work your way through deleting them in Family Tree Maker. Here is a link to how to delete in FTM familytreemakerhelp.com/delete-multiple-persons-in-ftm-2019/
When you have deleted everyone you want, then click on the sync tree to Ancestry option and Family Tree Maker will delete the folks from your Ancestry tree.
What if I want to keep the other families of my ancestors?
how can i FIND and DELETE floating trees from Myheritage?
Now that's a tutorial I haven't made yet. Sorry. But thanks for the idea.
@@FamilyHistoryFanatics that's can be so useful! :)
I use Reunion for Mac. They call floating trees “Islands”. I have several of these, non of which I would delete. One of my “Islands” contains over a thousand people all related through my DNA matches, but as yet I have not concluded exactly my relationship to them. I have linked these DNA matches on Ancestry and await a time when I can connect them to the rest of my Ancestry tree. At the moment it is not possible to sync Reunion with Ancestry. I would not want to sync with Ancestry if it meant sharing all my data. When you sync Ancestry to FTM or RM is it possible to define what gets synced, or is it a case of all or nothing?
With RootsMagic, after the first initial sync, which would be from your Ancestry tree to RootsMagic if you do not want to share everything, then you can control what you share to RootsMagic. Perhaps that's one of the reasons RootsMagic is a manual update to Ancestry rather than a full sync. I hadn't thought of that.
Family Tree Maker could likely allow you to control what you share using their manual sync option. I'm not as familiar with it.
I hope you know that the floating tree deletion is not for intentional floating trees. Our viewer was hoping to delete ones that shouldn't be in the tree or were left behind by mistake.
I actually graduated from high school in Virginia. We moved to Fairfax my senior year.
Gotcha. I still picked Dallas, OR with you in mind. Since you lived there now I thought it was make you smile.
@@FamilyHistoryFanatics that’s so sweet. Thx!
Here's a problem I ran into. I entered a large tree going over 100 years. In many families there were between 8-14 children per family. In 3 of these cases where 3 parents had died, their spouse remarried a person already in the family. Yes 3 inter marriages within the family. Then those couples may have produced more children.
So some people assigned the offspring to the first couple not the amended couple. When I drew this tree on a giant piece of paper there were 3 crosses.
Oh the joys of family history research. It's not always along a 'simple' trajectory is it?
🌳Ancestry.com: 5 Ways to Enhance Your Family Tree 👉🏼ruclips.net/video/UYF_tR6yvUk/видео.html