Looking for help with changing children from one mother to another

RootsMagic
,
1

I am using RM9 on Windows 10 latest versions of both.
I have a situation where Joe has two wives in my tree - Mary and Jane.
Mary has 4 children with Joe. Jane has no children with Joe.
This is incorrect - the 4 children should be with Jane and Mary had no children with him.
How should I proceed to disconnect the children from Mary and transfer them to Jane?
Without some guidance, I know I’ll mess things up. I have form!!!
There is a similar hit on this forum but I’m afraid it may be on an older RM version.
GM.

2

There are several different ways. None of them are particular more correct than the other. Here is the way I would do it.

  • Highlight Joe.
  • Switch to Descendant View.
  • Set Descendant View to 2 generations. You should be seeing Joe with his two wives Mary and Jane and you should be seeing all 4 children connected to Mary.
  • Right click child #1 and choose the Add Parents option.
  • You will be in the Add Father screen. Choose the Select Existing Person option. This is highly important.
  • Navigate to Joe. The easiest way to do so is probably to enter his name in the search box, last name followed by a comma followed by his first name.
  • Select Joe and click Ok.
  • You will be offered the chance to add child #1 either to the family of Joe and Mary or to the family of Joe and Jane. If you are offered Joe and Jane, click Add. If you are offered Joe and Mary, click No and then you will be offered Joe and Jane at which point you click Add.
  • Repeat for child #2, child #3, and child #4. At this point, each child will be linked twice, once as the child of Joe and Jane and once as the child of Joe and Mary.
  • Highlight Mary and switch to Family View.
  • Right click each child in turn and unlink them from parents.
  • Highlight Joe and go back to Descendant View for two generations. This is just to verify that the links and unlinks worked correctly. All should be well.
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3

Wow! Just Wow!
I am so glad I didn’t venture into that alone.
Many, many thanks Gerry. Your time and effort is much appreciated.
GM.

2 Likes