I cannot see my spouse and in-laws in Family Tree

This comment came up in a visit to a family this afternoon. Fortunately it is easy to fix. Create records for any living ancestors (typically the parents and grand parents to link your record of your spouse to their deceased ancestors. The first generation of deceased ancestors will automatically bring along all of their linked family members. Check your children's accounts, as they may need to add their living ancestors to connect to their deceased ancestors too. Once this is done for a family line, you will not need to do it again in that account.

What causes this issue? The Church needs to protect the privacy of living people. To do this, the records for living people are hidden from all accounts except the account where the record was created. Any record for a living person exists in a "private space", with a unique ID. If you see yourself in your spouse's account, your ID will be different than the one you see in your own account. This is why you cannot add living people by ID. Any particular living ID can only exist in one account.


I cannot see my spouse and in-laws in Family Tree (53513)

You may not be able to see your spouse's family and ancestors in Family Tree for several reasons.

Your spouse's parents are living.
If your spouse's parents are living, and if their records are already in Family Tree, the records are not visible to you because of privacy restrictions.

If you want to see them in your tree, add them to your tree. Their records will be in your private space and visible only to you there.

Your spouse's parents are deceased, but their records in Family Tree show as living.
If your spouse's parents are deceased, and if their records are already in Family Tree, you probably cannot see them because the records still show them as living.

If the records do not show, your spouse may need to go into Family Tree and mark his or her tree parents' records as deceased. If the records do not show up in your family tree, you can link them as existing people into your pedigree. All of the deceased ancestors connected to them should also appear.

It is also a good idea to see if Family Tree has duplicates of your spouse's parents. If you find any, merge them.

Your spouse's parents are not in Family Tree.
Family Tree may not have records for your spouse's parents. You can add them.


Related articles you can find in the Help Center
How do I add a family member to Family Tree? (56435)
What is a private space in Family Tree? (98224)
How do I add an ancestor who is already in Family Tree to my pedigree? (422315)