Hi, I am getting divorced and while I have kids, I don’t want my husband’s ancestors (or husband) front and centre in my file and in particular in my Ancestry and Familysearch matches (where I have trees uploaded).I will preserve a file for my husband 's genealogy so my kids have access to it if they want. But my file should have none of his ancestors.
What is the least risk way to split the file? Note, this file is linked to both Ancestry and Familysearch, and there are many many sources with images attached.
Here are my thoughts:
Ensure all Ancestry “matches” are accepted or declined.
Ensure all Familysearch matches are accepted or declined.
Are the above steps necessary? or should I just do this when I reconnect back to Ancestry with a new file?
Copy file for backup.
Disconnect file from ancestry and familysearch.
Tag all his ancestors and their siblings/children etc.
Delete those people based on tag.
Note, I’m not sure this will 100% work as some of his lines have many descendants. Or should the approach be to go to the end of each line and tag all the descendants of those people? Or do I just double check by remaining surnames (I’m not sure I’d know the all)?
Reload new files to Ancestry and Familysearch.
Delete old files from Ancestry and Familysearch.
Any errors in my logic? Recommendations?
How can I separate the attachments - so his attached sources are in a different folder? Is there a move functional available?
since you have kids – they are your children’s ancestors. This sounds like you have a personal objection including them. A genealogist would not exclude them based on that. I for example include children of spouses after and before because they likely share a DNA connection.
you can filter them out using groups – how many generation go back and if you zero relation. My Parents are 11th cousins for example. Might factor in. What is sounds like you really want is people only directly related to do here is what Gemini suggests
Splitting a family tree or handling divorces in genealogy software requires careful planning to maintain historical accuracy while keeping your research organized. How you handle it depends on whether you want to split a file permanently (create a separate branch) or manage the divorce cleanly within your current database.
Method 1: Managing Divorce Within Your Current Database (Recommended)
Most modern genealogy software (such as RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, or Legacy) is designed to handle multiple marriages and divorces on a single timeline without needing to split the database.
Record the Divorce Event: Add a “Divorce” (or “Annulment”) event to the family/couple relationship. Be sure to include the date and place if known. This separates the partnership on paper while keeping both individuals linked to their respective children.
Use Relationship Status Flags: Set the relationship status to “Divorced” rather than just leaving the end date blank. This ensures reports and descendant charts reflect the correct legal and familial status.
Maintain Lineage Integrity: Children born from the marriage should remain linked to both biological parents. Even after a divorce, biological parent-child relationships do not change genealogically.
Method 2: Permanently Splitting a Branch into a New File
If you want to isolate a specific line (for example, creating a separate descendant report or database for an ex-spouse’s collateral family lines that you no longer wish to track alongside your primary lineage), you can export a subset of your tree.
Tag the Focus Ancestor: In your software, use a Group Tag or a bookmark to mark the specific individual (the ex-spouse) and the ancestors or descendants you want to move into the new file.
Export to GEDCOM: Choose the export function and select the option to export “Selected People” or use your tagged group.
Set Generation Limits (If Needed): Decide whether to include ancestors, descendants, or both. Be careful with shared children—if you export descendants of the ex-spouse who are also your direct descendants, they will appear in both files.
Import into a New Database: Create a blank database in your genealogy program and import the newly created GEDCOM file. Review the imported file to ensure the divorce links and family groupings transferred correctly.
Key Best Practices & Considerations
Handling Step-Families: If children were raised by a stepparent after a remarriage, use software features to distinguish between Biological and Adoptive/Step relationships so that bloodlines remain crystal clear for DNA and historical accuracy.
Privacy and Living People: If you are splitting a tree to share with a specific side of a family or to publish online, make sure to apply privacy filters to exclude living individuals, especially concerning sensitive divorce or recent marriage records.
Source Citations: Ensure that any legal divorce decrees, census records showing separate households, or marriage dissolutions are cited properly to the specific couple relationship rather than just to the individual profiles.
I totally sympathize. I too have an ex-spouse & children scenario.
Rather than excise the ex & their family from my tree, I took a different route.
I left them all in, but I renamed my spouse’s primary (i.e. profile display) name as _ _ , shifting their actual name to being an alternate. I also set their gender to ‘unknown’ By doing that, it preserves the parental connections to the children without forcing me to see their name or even an icon for them every time I look at the tree.
Later, if my children want to take up the tree they won’t have to re-create all the additional work I’ve done. After all, even though the ex makes me furious, it is the kids’ ancestors. They can then change the name back when I’m no longer alive and I won’t care at that point.
Changing the name works just fine in RM and Ancestry. Familysearch though is going to be a different animal. Anyone could add the connections right back some day. So I just grit my teeth when I’m there and move on to other views and research as quickly as possible.
Hi all, I appreciate the leave him in comments, but I get dozens of Ancestry hints a week on his family that I really don’t care to spend my time reviewing or researching. The kids will get the other file but it doesn’t have to be constantly in my emails and every time I logon to Ancestry. I have a big (7000) person file and likely half of them are his side. I want to focus my time on my side and they can do their own research later if they are interested.
If you create a new Ancestry tree you will get the same hints you worked early all over again. If the issue is seeing your ex then just unlink from him, or as Kimberly suggested rename him.
So what you’re really after isn’t so much an RM thing as an Ancestry thing (where the hints are coming from).
Once you manage to cull them all from Ancestry, when you do a TreeShare back to RM then it will prompt you to delete from the RM database. If you want a version of that RM database to have all of your ex and family in it, you can duplicate the database file.
As for Ancestry, that’s going to take some doing. Ancestry doesn’t have any kind of bulk-person modification tools that I’m aware of. You might be able to use some of the reporting ability in RM to identify who is in your branch, generate a report and bump that against the “all people” list in Ancestry. From there you’d probably just have to brute-force clip them.
It’s an RM thing in as much as how do I delete him with all his ancestors, their descendants, and all the source documents. Assume I made a complete 2nd backup for his file, where I do the same but for myself. Two entirely separate files. I then upload mine to Ancestry and only get my hints.
I think, even if you’re able to bulk delete all the relevant people from the RM database, all the source documents and media are going to remain. They’ll just have zero citations / links associated. So you’d then have to go back through and cull those as well, being cautious not to delete something that you might still need.
The upshot is that trying to bulk-remove a bunch of folks is a bit hazardous.
I’m not sitting in front of RM right now, but I think it has the ability to generate a report of people who are just ancestors & relatives of your ex-spouse. I would start by generating that list. Then you might have to use the list to prune downwards from oldest generations forward, with the last cut being your ex-spouse.
Ok so I found the answer on the deletion, create a group using the tree function. Unlink ex from me. Select ex and it will grab the entire tree in both directions and mark everyone in the group. Then delete everyone in the group. Removed 1700 people. I will do same in his file, but removing my tree - this way there are no duplicates between the tree (except the kids).
Media files still exist in the folder which is too bad as I have 2GB of them. I will see if there is a way to delete unlinked media files and post if I figure that out.
Posting in case you are interested… found a whole new menu in RM called Enhanced Properties List in tools. Allows you to bulk delete unused sources and media files. Almost there with the clean up…
Then in WebHints, you can disconnect your file from ancestry. Delete the tree on Ancestry and I’m now uploading a new clean version. This way I won’t get hints for ex’s ancestors. Just have to make sure I don’t accept any hints that remarry me to my ex!
Drag N Drop might work also – not sure of best way to do it as I have not used that function much – maybe form each of your parents – Deleting only people might leave media or citation you do not care about maybe someone can advise on that.
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