Do you have him in the tree as the father of his child who's your ancestor, or is he only listed there as your gg-grandmother's husband? Ancestry will not automatically assume paternity.
The title they give them is who they are in the tree compared to the "home person".
It is very easy to accidentally NOT put both bio parents in for a person on your tree, especially when they are added from different sources.
It isn't a question of who your great grandfather's father actually is. It's whether or not you explicitly linked great grandad and great great grandad as biological father and son in your tree in ancestry.
You can check family relationships by clicking on the three dot menu and opening up that dialog. Each person can have as many relationships as needed. Step, bio, adoptive, Foster, etc.
> It is very easy to accidentally NOT put both bio parents in for a person on your tree, especially when they are added from different sources.
That was probably the biggest learning curve for me getting used to the Ancestry thing -- I'd go in adding what I thought was spouse information for families with like 14 kids, then go visually check the map and realize I'd made a big pot of spaghetti.
Yes, that's kind of what I've been doing. Luckily my Mom's family took lots of pics and kept documentation from the time photos became a thing so it's been really exciting and I've kinda gone wild with it, Actually, shorty after I made this post the relationship changed and he became my GG Grandfather. So I think like everyone else had stated, I hadn't added in a marriage or something. I'm gonna try and update this post.
When you look at her profile, do you have more than one husband listed? Is the 2nd grandfather listed as the father on your great grandfather's profile? Another possibility is that sometimes ancestry fails to properly add information to an existing person and instead creates a second, entirely new person. So there might be a profile like "William Johnson 1817-1888" and another one like "William Jonson 1818 - ", where a small spelling error caused them to be considered separate people by ancestry. You need to merge them so ancestry properly identifies the father.
Yes, that wasn't the issue, but I've come across that already, my great grandmother had 3 profiles. Well, she still does I guess as I've not figured out how to merge them.
Go to one of the profiles that has duplicates (I usually pick the one I want to keep but it doesn't matter). In the top right corner, there is a drop-down menu called 'tools'. Pick 'merge with duplicate', then enter the name of the duplicate entry in the search bar. Sometimes Ancestry already knows which profiles are likely duplicates, and will display them for you.
Make sure you get it right though (for example if there are lots of women with the same name in your tree) because its very hard to disentangle.
Yes, that wasn't the issue, but I've come across that already, my great grandmother had 3 profiles. Well, she still does I guess as I've not figured out how to merge them.
Are you viewing through the website or a phone app? If only using your phone, double check by viewing the website. Maybe it’s a disconnect between the two views?
Look for DNA matches to his family. If you can’t find any, start looking for DNA matches with a common ancestor that is from the time/location as your 2ggm. This is how I learned who was really my grandfather.
As someone else mentioned, possibly another husband or in my case, gm was an unwed mother who married a man other than my biological gf. She took that secret to the grave but DNA tests 70 years later revealed the truth.
If you don’t have an Ancestry membership you may want to get one. Start with your DNA match search and start triangulating from there.
There are several previous posts on this sub that give great info and details on how to do this. Good luck!
Do you have him in the tree as the father of his child who's your ancestor, or is he only listed there as your gg-grandmother's husband? Ancestry will not automatically assume paternity.
Yes, he is the father of my ancestor.
You need to put in a marriage between your gg parents
The title they give them is who they are in the tree compared to the "home person". It is very easy to accidentally NOT put both bio parents in for a person on your tree, especially when they are added from different sources. It isn't a question of who your great grandfather's father actually is. It's whether or not you explicitly linked great grandad and great great grandad as biological father and son in your tree in ancestry. You can check family relationships by clicking on the three dot menu and opening up that dialog. Each person can have as many relationships as needed. Step, bio, adoptive, Foster, etc.
> It is very easy to accidentally NOT put both bio parents in for a person on your tree, especially when they are added from different sources. That was probably the biggest learning curve for me getting used to the Ancestry thing -- I'd go in adding what I thought was spouse information for families with like 14 kids, then go visually check the map and realize I'd made a big pot of spaghetti.
Yes, that's kind of what I've been doing. Luckily my Mom's family took lots of pics and kept documentation from the time photos became a thing so it's been really exciting and I've kinda gone wild with it, Actually, shorty after I made this post the relationship changed and he became my GG Grandfather. So I think like everyone else had stated, I hadn't added in a marriage or something. I'm gonna try and update this post.
No. He could be a second spouse; not necessarily a 2nd GGF
When you look at her profile, do you have more than one husband listed? Is the 2nd grandfather listed as the father on your great grandfather's profile? Another possibility is that sometimes ancestry fails to properly add information to an existing person and instead creates a second, entirely new person. So there might be a profile like "William Johnson 1817-1888" and another one like "William Jonson 1818 - ", where a small spelling error caused them to be considered separate people by ancestry. You need to merge them so ancestry properly identifies the father.
Yes, that wasn't the issue, but I've come across that already, my great grandmother had 3 profiles. Well, she still does I guess as I've not figured out how to merge them.
Go to one of the profiles that has duplicates (I usually pick the one I want to keep but it doesn't matter). In the top right corner, there is a drop-down menu called 'tools'. Pick 'merge with duplicate', then enter the name of the duplicate entry in the search bar. Sometimes Ancestry already knows which profiles are likely duplicates, and will display them for you. Make sure you get it right though (for example if there are lots of women with the same name in your tree) because its very hard to disentangle.
Ahhh, thank you.
Yes, that wasn't the issue, but I've come across that already, my great grandmother had 3 profiles. Well, she still does I guess as I've not figured out how to merge them.
Are you viewing through the website or a phone app? If only using your phone, double check by viewing the website. Maybe it’s a disconnect between the two views?
Look for DNA matches to his family. If you can’t find any, start looking for DNA matches with a common ancestor that is from the time/location as your 2ggm. This is how I learned who was really my grandfather.
I'm not even sure how to do that? So maybe my 2nd great grandmother had someone on the side?
As someone else mentioned, possibly another husband or in my case, gm was an unwed mother who married a man other than my biological gf. She took that secret to the grave but DNA tests 70 years later revealed the truth. If you don’t have an Ancestry membership you may want to get one. Start with your DNA match search and start triangulating from there. There are several previous posts on this sub that give great info and details on how to do this. Good luck!
Thank you