Why do I see "unknown" individuals in my tree online after I publish from Family Tree Builder?
There are two main reasons ‘unknown’ individuals may appear in your tree online after you publish it from Family Tree Builder.
Privatized individual in Family Tree Builder
Open your project in Family Tree Builder.
Search the name of the person that appears as ‘unknown’ on your family site.
Click Edit > Edit details of [name].
Click on the More tab.
At the bottom of the screen there is a check box ‘This person is privatized (do not publish details online)’.
Uncheck the box and republish your family tree to your family site.
Display and Data language in Family Tree Builder
In Family Tree Builder, it is possible to choose a DISPLAY language and a DATA ENTRY language.
DISPLAY language corresponds to all the buttons and command names in the program. DISPLAY language changes Family Tree Builder’s interface only and will not affect any information that you have manually entered in the tree.
DATA ENTRY language corresponds to the information you enter into the tree yourself. Names, places, notes, etc. are considered DATA.
Problems may arise when DATA is entered in one language when the DISPLAY language is different. For example, a tree with Italian DATA language set to English DISPLAY language will a) produce gibberish or b) will show names as ‘unknown’ after publish to a family site.
The reason for the problem is that when the DISPLAY language is set to English, Family Tree Builder tries to read any data entered in English character encoding. If Italian characters were entered, Family Tree Builder won’t know how to read them because it is trying to read according to the encoding characteristics for English characters.
Due to the fact that each language has its own encoding characteristics, this problem can occur between any language pair. Even if only ONE character was entered the problem can occur.
When this problem occurs, Family Tree Builder shows names as UNKNOWN. It can see there is data in the tree, but doesn’t know how to read the names and therefore displays UNKNOWN. In order to fix this, please open your project in Family Tree Builder and make sure that you have the appropriate languages selected and translated.
1. Select language - Tools > Languages menu allows you to choose Display language, Primary Language and/or Secondary Language. It is recommended that Primary and Display language will be the same.
2. Translate Data - the Translation Wizard is a fast and effective way to translate data to a Secondary Language. Go to Tools > Translation Wizard to easily translate names and places in your tree. Republish to update the changes on your family site.
