How to Fix Multiple Ancestors in your Family Tree

Unfortunately, Ancestry.com’s incredible system isn’t flawless. With so many complex connections being made between the family tree databases and the actual records they have, there are bound to be problems if you aren’t careful. Fortunately, you can prevent most family tree problems by simply being aware of what you’re doing to your tree at all times. But if you’re adding hints and records all over the place, you may inadvertently add duplicate ancestors to your family tree. This usually happens because hints or records that contain information about family members (like censuses) try to add new relationships when you’ve already inputted them into your tree. The result is that one of your ancestors ends up with two wives with the exact same name and most of the same information. But details you add to one aren’t added to another.

This is a huge headache for a lot of people. Of course, Ancestry.com is constantly improving their system to both prevent this problem and to eliminate it if it happens. But in the mean time, you can see the video below to see how to fix duplicate ancestors in your family tree.

Click on the full screen button to watch the video using your entire computer screen. You can also double-click the video to watch it full screen.