Thom McCabe

Thanks Rhon, appreciate that. I am just building my "tree" and am having some difficulty with one of my relatives I added. I can't figure out how to delete the wife that is connected to my great grandfather. It is my great grandmother's name but the "profile" is made by someone else and I want it gone. I did delete most of my tree and re-installed the names but that one keeps getting connected.

Do I have to delete my whole tree?

Hi Thom!

You can't (or almost never can) delete profiles on WikiTree. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Deletion_FAQ

If there are errors we can fix them, and if there are duplicate profiles, we merge them. On Wikitree there is a single profile for each historic person, and everyone works on the same tree, and the same profiles. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Collaborative_Family_Tree

I've proposed merges for those duplicate profiles (Remi Digout and Marie Ann Petitpas. When you and the other profile manager approve the merges, they can be completed.

If you get stuck, let me know! and of course Rhon is very knowledgeable and helpful too.

Brad

Thanks Brad. I just wanted to remove the second wife issue to Remi in her profile as it was connected to someone else's profile and our data was a bit different. As a new user here, I am not up to speed on how to do everything.

As for merging, I would agree without a problem as long as the name and data are the same. In my particular instance one was the French version of my GGM's name, Marie Anne vs Mary Ann, and I think that would be confusing to have them both on there. My mother knew her grandmother as Mary Ann so I use that in my data.

Rhon and I have been collaborating on many of our common Acadian ancestors specifically in the LeJeune/Young line.

Thom

If they are the same person, you need to merge the profiles.

You can decide on the preferred spelling for names, and add sources to support the profiles. If there are are any remaining ambiguities about differing information, you can write it up under "research notes."

But you absolutely, 100%, need to merge.

Brad

And just as a bookkeeping thing, if (for instance) the parents and spouses of duplicated profiles are the same, they should definitely be attached. So because https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Petitpas-452 and https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Petipas-96 are the same person, they should both have the same parents.

This is important just for logical reasons. But also, if a merge doesn't go through immediately (sometimes it can take a few weeks for default approval) it makes the relationship obvious, and avoids cases where people accidentally create additional duplicates in the same line (adding additional parents, or wives).

It's pretty easy to have cases where 3 and 4 generations in the same line get duplicated (or triplicated) and it can be especially hard to spot when dates are estimated, or names have lots of variant spellings (this happens frequently in French Canadian and Acadian lines).

B

Hi Thom, we usually create profiles with legal names or names given at birth as the name on the profile but when you create or edit a profile, you can also add a preferred name if someone was most commonly known by it. You can add nicknames. You can show variations of a surname then refer to them in your bio and research notes.

I "removed" most of my "tree' back to my grandparents then re-did the names so I think my "tree" is good now. I have to stop at Remi Petipas as I have no source document to prove his parentage link which I have as Jean Baptiste 1789-1872 and Anne Benoit 1792-1824. Jean Baptiste was married twice and the records available are mostly for his second marriage to Adelaide Charpentier. I know he was married to Anne Benoit from the baptismal record of one of their children, which is the only document I have found. It just isn't the one for Remi(y) dit Remi(y) Patrick or as some suggest Jeremiah as his Christian name. That particular name is not one I have found anywhere.

There is very little in source documents for his time frame in Tracadie, Antigonish County, NS.

Thom