Family Tree Checker

V1.4.0 (26 Jun 2023)

Family Tree Checker analyzes your family tree for errors and inconsistencies.
Free, nothing to install, no registration required.
It works using your GEDCOM file.
Cleaning up your data will yield more and higher quality hints from your genealogy software.

Ancestry.com has some non-standard data in their GEDCOM files -

If a person is marked as deceased, but they have no date of death, Ancestry does not include a GEDCOM death record. Without a death record, Family Tree Checker will assume that person is alive. If you import that GEDCOM anywhere, those people will be marked as being alive even though they had been originally marked as deceased.
Some marriage-related facts do not include a spouse. If you know who the spouse is, you can edit the fact to include them.
A residence can exist without a location being specified. Logically, a residence without a location has little meaning. To correct this, look at the fact's source for a location. Edit the residence fact to manually add the location.
Likewise, a residence can exist without a date. To correct this, look at the fact's source for a date. If there is one, edit the residence fact to manually add the date.
Sometimes a marriage announcement date or a marriage license date is incorrectly set as the marriage date.
Sometimes an obituary date or a burial date is incorrectly set as the death date.
In Ancestry's new GEDCOM format (5.5.1), many times the husband and wife positions are switched. This caused problems with surname checking. Family Tree Checker has been updated to compensate for this.
One case was found where the husband is listed as the wife and the wife is listed as the husband and the son is disconnected from the family, even though, when viewing the tree on Ancestry, all looks correct. If you have GEDCOM Error checking enabled, you may see this in your results as: 'GEDCOM error! (The FAMC record does not have a family id)'.
Some GEDCOM lines do not contain the required GEDCOM level and tag. These malformed lines are reported to you as an Invalid line GEDCOM error. Whatever data they contain is ignored by Family Tree Checker.
In some cases, Ancestry used a county name as a town name. For example, the 1940 census listed the person's location as Richmond County, NY (aka Staten Island, New York City). However, Ancestry interpreted it as Richmond, NY, a small town in Ontario County, about 300 miles away. This generated hints for the wrong person.
In some instances, Ancestry is unable to import a GEDCOM file that Ancestry created. This can be a major problem if you're counting on the GEDCOM file as a backup for your tree. You may want to test Ancestry's ability to re-import your GEDCOM file.

If Family Tree Checker shows you facts with errors, but you don't see those facts on the person's timeline, go to the person's Fact page and click the picklist button named Filter. Be sure all the available options are selected (specifically 'Alternate Facts' and 'Name and Gender').

Below are some of the errors you may encounter and what they mean -

Error	Description
Alt. Birth comes before birth!	Alternate dates for events should be entered as events, not as custom events.
Alt. Death comes after death!	In this case, alternate birth and death event dates were entered as custom events Alt. Birth and Alt. Death.
Burial date comes after death!	Post-death facts are not events. Change them to be facts associated with a death event. Some exceptions have been allowed since they are prevalent in many trees. (See Publication Date comes after death! below.)
[event name] date error!	The date specified is not in a recognized format. See Help section Date Formats for more information.
Event without a spouse!	The specified event should have a spouse associated with it. Edit the event to include the spouse.
Has no family connections.	This person is not connected to anyone in your tree - no parents, no children, and no spouse.
Inconsistent surnames!	Children are expected to have a father's surname, be it biological, step, or otherwise. If there is a mother, but no father, add a father with the correct surname. If the names appear to be the same, look closely for extra spaces at the beginning or end of the name. If the difference is expected, add the alternate spelling as an alternate surname to the parent or children, or see the Help menu for the error suppressor you can use.
Individual is too old!	If there are birth and death dates for this person, then the person's age exceeds the maximum person age specified in Family Tree Checker's settings. If there is no death date, but the person has been marked as deceased, this is an Ancestry bug. See Help->Ancestry.com Issues.
Maiden name same as married name!	If you don't know the maiden name, it should be left blank. (Ancestry)
Multiple genders!	Only one gender record is expected. Remove the gender fact records that do not belong.
Obituary comes before death!	You have the wrong obituary date or death date. Or you've included someone else's obituary on this person's timeline.
Publication Date comes after death!	A custom event was used for a post-death event. Recognized custom post death events will include one or more of the following words: Coroner, Death Notice, Memorial, Obit, Obituary, or Probate. For example, if this is an obituary, then change the custom event title from Publication Date to Obituary.
Residence has no location!	A residence should have a location. Check the associated fact record.
Suffix in surname!	Place the person's suffix in the suffix field, not in the surname field.

One of the goals of Family Tree Checker is to encourage standardized formats. This allows Ancestry et al to do a better job at providing hints. There are many date formats that we all can understand that the various genealogy apps might ignore.
The GEDCOM standard date format is 'day month year' expressed as 4 Jan 1983.
The assumption is that the day comes first, then the month, then the year.
Family Tree Checker will attempt to process a few other formats, but they might not be supported at all genealogy sites.
When there are multiple possible dates for an event, a separate event, along with the relevant supporting sources, should be created for each date.
Hebrew and Julian date formats are defined in the GEDCOM standard, but they are not supported at this time.

Here are some examples of valid and invalid date formats -

Valid Dates	Invalid Dates
10 Dec 1843	10 Dez 1843
Jul 1983	13 Jul
1983	Possibly 1983
Abt. 1983	Unknown
Bef. 1983	8 1934
19/01/1918	01/19/1918
1972-1974	1972 1973 1974
1972-10-23	1972-Oct-23
FROM 1972 TO 1980	1918-01-19
BET 15 Mar 1962 AND 1970	1962/1970

FROM TO is used for a fact that occurred over a period of time (for example, a job).
BET AND is used for an event that occurred somewhere within that period of time (for example, a burial).

* Some errors are not errors at all *

To suppress them, add a custom fact (as shown below) to a person in your tree.

After you've added the custom fact, re-download and re-process your GEDCOM file.

The error should no longer appear in the results for that person.

The field in which to enter the custom fact is called Fact Type on MyHeritage, and Fact Label on Ancestry.

Add a comment to the custom fact as to why the exception is ok.

If you should change your mind, just delete the custom fact.

Error	Custom Fact	Description
Children with same name!	FTC_SameNameOK	Do not compare this child's name to their siblings' names.
Inconsistent surnames!	FTC_SurnameOK	Do not compare this child's surname to their father's surname.
	FTC_SurnameNoCheck	Do not compare this father's surname to their children's surnames.

New custom facts will be added as the need arises.

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Family Tree Checker