TOPIC:

Hello

I have "inherited" a webtrees site with 1153 individuals and I am trying to understand how it works.

For instance I read in a post "go to page > edit > Change family members". I am not even able to find this. What is meant with "page"? I simply cannot find this menu.

I found the control panel and there "manage family trees" but nowhere I can see how to change family members.

Is there a user documentation that explains such basic things? webtreesmanual.com was not of help.

Also, when I check for errors I can see 12 errors like: "FAM F281 has a HUSB link to I904. I904 does not have a link back to F281." or "FAM F216 has a CHIL link to I796. I796 does not have a link back to F216.". I have no idea what to do. Again the request for some basic documentation.

Welcome to webtrees, glad to have you aboard!

You wrote this in the webtrees version 1.7

This refers to the family page of a particular family unit then the “edit” icon in the menus bar. You must be signed on with appropriate security to access this function.

Version 1.7 is an older version of webtrees. I’m not sure if the documentation for this version is still online.

Ask questions here and users of the software are happy to help. We are all volunteers including the programmers.

Hello,
I've been using Webtrees 1.7.x for many years and am happy to answer questions. You must be logged in to your site with admin privileges in order to run the error check, so you can access the edit menus on each page.

Let's work through one of your example errors: "FAM F281 has a HUSB link to I904. I904 does not have a link back to F281."

If I remember correctly, the identifiers "F281" and "I904" should be hyperlinks that lead to the "Family Page" for family F281 and the Individual Page for person "I904", respectively.

• Open each of these pages in separate tabs (use CMD click on a Mac, or I think right-click on Windows).
• Go to the Family page and note the person who is named as the Husband for this family.
• Go to the Individual page and verify that this is the same person as the Husband identified above, and also that the previously-identified family is NOT shown in the right-hand column of the page under the heading "Family Navigator".
• Go back to the Family page and click on the Edit icon near the top right, then on "Change family members" from the drop-down menu. You will see a new pop-up window containing a list of names for all family members. Click the DELETE button next to the Husband's name and then SAVE.
• While still on the same Family page, click on Edit > Change family members again to open the same pop-up window. This time you should see that the entry for the Husband is blank, but there is now a button ADD next to it.
• Click on the ADD button, which brings up yet another pop-up window allowing you to search for the individual you wish to add. Enter (some part of) the name of the person in the search box and select the right individual from the list of results. When this secondary pop-up goes away you should see identifier I904 has been placed in the form for adding a Husband to this family, so SAVE it to complete the task

PS. I'm happy to answer other questions off-line if you send them via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

casellini wrote: Hello
I read in a post "go to page > edit > Change family members". I am not even able to find this. What is meant with "page"? I simply cannot find this menu.

I found the control panel and there "manage family trees" but nowhere I can see how to change family members.

Yes, I heard quite often that this specific function is hard to find.

Mostly you're navigating between the pages that show details of persons. That's the Person or Individual page.

All pages have a menu bar with icons looking something like this:



This image is taken while you're at the main page. When you're on the page of a person (and logged in, which seems no problem for you) then at the right of this icon bar there's an Edit icon with a menu if you click on it. First you need to go to a Family page instead of Person page. For that you need to click on one of the "Family with ..." links at the middle right.

Once you see a Family (and nothing but a family) then the Edit menu icon has an extra option: Edit Family Members

casellini wrote: Also, when I check for errors I can see 12 errors like: "FAM F281 has a HUSB link to I904. I904 does not have a link back to F281." or "FAM F216 has a CHIL link to I796. I796 does not have a link back to F216.". I have no idea what to do.

What to do: that depends. Review the data for what is correct and what is not correct. This type of error mostly occurs when the creation process stopped halfway. What was done after that? Was the added child perhaps created again?

> FAM F281 has a HUSB link to I904. I904 does not have a link back to F281.

The easy fix seems to me to edit family members of family F281. Remove the husband and add him again.

> FAM F216 has a CHIL link to I796. I796 does not have a link back to F216

Same: remove the child and add him/her again.

casellini wrote: Is there a user documentation that explains such basic things? webtreesmanual.com was not of help.

Writing good documentation is perhaps even harder than writing software.

At the times of v1.x there was a wiki. You can still browse it in the WaybackMachine of web.archive.org:
web.archive.org/web/20190607072951/https...ees.net/en/Main_Page

Without the Search function it might look even more incomplete than it ever was.

Thanks to all for helping. I am slowly getting into webtrees.

I am the one who originally installed it (phpgedview) so yes, I am admin :-)

With your help I was able to remove an individual from a family. This individual was memeber of two families (I wonder why the software did not stop the editor from adding him to two familes...)

Concerning the errors: I am starting to understand how it works but it takes time.

Should I upgrade to version 2? Somewhere I read it is beta?

Version 2.0 came out in December of 2019. The software is currently at version 2.0.11, a new sub release gets put out every couple of months or so. Version 2.1.0 is in the works.

Based on the GEDCOM Standard an individual can technically be associated with any number of families. In most cases they would have one family as a child, but in cases of adoption some people include the child in both their birth family and adoptive family. If they were also in foster care I suppose they could be in more than two families as a child.