In trying to clean up a line, how do I delete the last hypothetical person in that line? [closed]

Question

This problem is a result of a mistake I made. DELETING It should influence no other individual or family, JUST TO take off the last name in the line. The mistake was twofold, the misuse of a VILLAGE name as a family name months ago and a coincidental effort to suggest using a continuation (into the past) of a male line by using the surname only.  Yes, it was a dumb error.

The "Deletion FAQ" makes deletion seem a sin when it should only make a clear space at the end of the line as it is at this moment.

Comments

Roberta --

I was going to take care of merging away the Unknown father's profile for you. I was planning on merging it into the daughter's profile. So, I quickly did a search for duplicates on her first. 

I noticed that there appear to be two profiles for the daughter. They are both shown as wives of Johann Carl von Berg.

Are the two wives actually the same person?

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Be careful. I followed this suggestion to get rid of "floaters"--stray profiles that connect to no one--including my own tree, anyone else's tree--or each other. No one had done work on these profiles but me. I saw this  suggestion for how to get rid of them, merge than erase the bio for the profile you wanted to delete. I happily merged away. Hours later I found my account blocked for "destructive merges" couldn't even ask about it on G2G forums also blocked to me, and my email got no response for 4 days--until I posted about it on the WikiTree group on Facebook--then the admin who blocked me undid that within hours--and sent me an email telling me merging was only to get rid of duplicates--nothing else.

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Lisa --

I think the difference here is that the profile that Roberta needed to "remove" had no dates, no places and was created automatically when she added a sibling. The system does that. Plus, we're talking about one profile vs. many.

Additionally, she asked for help in G2G so we knew that she wasn't intentionally destroying valid information.

I want to be upfront with you because that's just the way I operate. I was the ranger on duty when you were doing that, and it was me who blocked you. It's standard procedure when we see someone doing many, many "piggyback" merges. It causes big problems in the database, and we've experienced really serious vandalism from merges like you were doing. If we don't act quickly, it can ruin all the hard work that other members have put in and creates hours, days and weeks of additional work for the Arborists and others who have to repair the vandalized profiles.

I know that you are a fairly new member, and I also understand that you weren't doing anything you thought was harmful. We're all aware now that you're not here to do any harm.

The important thing to keep in mind on WikiTree is that we're all here to help each other. If you want to know how to do something or you run across something you're unsure of, please come on out and ask in G2G. There are tons of people out here who want to help, and you will have an answer/response before you know it.

I'm also always available to answer questions, and if I don't know the answer, I'll dig around and find it for you. :-)

So ... again ... sorry that there was a misunderstanding, and I hope we can move past this and help you to enjoy the community.

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If that explanation had been in the email I had received I'd have been fine. Or if I had been unblocked and given that explanation soon after I responded, I'd have been fine. Now, it's going to frankly take a while because that block happening so swiftly after months of work and then days of uncertainly about when and if it would ever be removed was a shock and I'm still a bit shaky and untrusting.

However, I don't like leaving messes behind me--and I'm still finding GED messes in checking the profiles. So maybe after some time working on this again my nerves will steady and I'll able to move beyond this. I do think the site has a lot of potential, taught me a lot, and it did help me find a sister I never knew I had who is excited now about researching her family.

Thankfully she'll be starting from scratch--not a GED. I think that makes for a lot less problems all around :-)

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I do understand, Lisa. You've had an uncomfortable occurrence. I often feel that I'm simply unable to achieve enough here that is correct, but every day I learn something from the G2G pilots. They are very learned, and I really need to find my Jewish grandfather. Please stick with it and feel you have all sorts of surprising support here,

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I think I'll have to--my sister was showing off WikiTree to her grandson today (whose reaction was "boy, they died young.") I may have created a monster...

Answer 1

You could simply merge it into one of your managed profiles, deleting all incorrect info.

Comments

I do not know how to do that. It is all on one tree now and this item is somenthing like UNKNOWN X2 + SALLMANN (AND THAT's all it could be. I added the hausen in one of the 2 errors. so it just needs to be deleted. As it stands, it's misleading and unhelpful.

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I followed this suggestion to get rid of "floaters"--stray profiles that connect to no one. Hours after having done so I found my account blocked for "destructive merges" When I was finally unblocked days later I was told you could only use merges to get rid of duplicates, nothing else. I don't agree with this policy, but I don't want anyone else getting into the trouble I did.