Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Dear Randy: How Do I Remove the Whole Tree From My Account?

Reader Wendy left a comment on my blog post  "Sorting Out How to Work With the FamilySearch Family Tree Problems" (dated 3 September 2013), asking: 

"All I want to know is how to completely delete (remove) the whole tree from my account? I could of sworn that I did it once before but now that doesn't seem to be a possibility or I'm I missing something?"


Here is my response:

1)  Are you asking if you can remove the whole tree on the FamilySearch Family Tree?  The short answer is "You cannot - it's impossible, since you are not the only one who contributes to this universal, source-centric, open environment tree - one family tree for everyone."

You could log in to your FamilySearch account and then go into the Family Tree and delete persons that you added to the FamilySearch Family Tree one person at a time.  However, these ancestors and their family members do not "belong" to only you - other researchers may have added them, or edited the information about them, to the FamilySearch Family Tree.

However, my understanding is that you cannot delete living people in the FamilySearch Family Tree at this time.


2)  Are you asking about how to remove an entire family tree from your own account on another online family tree website, such as Ancestry.com or MyHeritage or a number of others?  

That can be accomplished by accessing your account with a username and password, and then using the Help feature to find out how to delete your tree from the account.  For instance, the Ancestry.com Get Help article that describes how to do this is at  http://help.ancestry.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4544/kw/delete%20family%20tree.

3)  I hope this helps you do what you want to do.  


Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


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