The tree displayed always starts with the person who has logged on.  The tree is also marriage oriented.  Even if a person has been married more than once, you can only view one marriage at a time.  Why? ancestry doubles per generation – 2 parents 4 grandparents, 8 great-grand parents. 16, 32, 64 etc.  Let’s examine just one person.  George has been married three times.  If I made a computer program that could display all of his marriages at once, there are George plus 3 wives making 4 people.  Consider parents as generation 1. If we go out to the generation 4, then it would 16 times 4, or require a monitor that could display 64 people in a single column.  Anything beyond 8 wouldn’t be feasible. Solomon had 700 wives.  To display he and his wives lineage at 4 generations (700 times 16) would require a monitor taller than a 10 story building!  Obviously, only one marriage can be shown at a time. 

My sister and I have accounts, but our trees our different.  My tree shows mine and my wife’s linages – our ancestors and our children.  My sister’s tree shows her and her husband’s lineage – Her ancestors and her children.  My son is married, so his tree shows him as the main person with his wife’s ancestors and children. Everyone’s tree is personal and helps in understanding how views are dependent on the desires of the viewer, allowing changes. Examples”

John and Alice were married and had a son Ben.  Alice died and John remarried and had additional children. John is helping his 2d wife work her lineage, so he shows her appearing as his spouse on the tree instead of the 1st wife.  But, Ben doesn’t want to see that. He wants to see his Dad and Mom, not his step-mother.  

Can John and his children have different trees.  Of course.  It is easy to change views.  The key is that the change is always made at the personal level.  John sets his choice of spouse and sees the second wife.  Ben has the choice of either of his father’s marriages. Changes are easy, once you now how. The changes are not made on the tree, but at the personal display level.  Here is how:  From the tree view

1.  Click on the person that needs to make the change

2.  John clicks on his name in his tree and a card appears with his name. John clicks his name on the card and the Personal Details screen appears.  John scrolls down to Family Members and sees both marriages.  Just below “Show all Family Members” are the words SET PREFERRED which John clicks and chooses the second marriage, which will now show on his personal tree.

3.  Ben clicks his name in his tree.  A card shows up with his name.  He clicks his name on the card and the Personal Details screen appears.  He scrolls down to Family Members, clicks the SET PREFERRED and chooses John and his first wife to be his parents. Now Ben’s tree shows him connected to his Dad and Mom. (John’s 1st marriage)

Another example is my sister and I. We are adopted, but have connections to our birth grandparents, and we are researching both the birth and adoption lines.  We could easily make adjustments by clicking our name on the tree and using SET PREFERRED.  But we have decided that I will work on researching the birth line, and my sister the adoption line.  So we have set our trees accordingly.  We both see our mother’s lineage, but different fathers.

Each of my five children had to choose which grandparent set, birth or adoption.  They never knew their birth grandfather. Since they only knew their adoption line, all five have made that their choice for their trees.  

The ability to make necessary changes is the beauty of the FamilySearch Family Tree.