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Some of the entries in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree have duplicates that cannot be merged at this time. These entries are usually those who are classified as Individuals of Unusual Size (IOUSs). One of these is my Great-great-grandfather, Sidney Tanner. He presently has two very prominently displayed duplicates. Here is a screenshot showing the two duplicate entries:
These two obvious duplicates cannot be merged at this time. This situation is caused by the fact that all of the information from new.FamilySearch.org has yet to be moved into Family Tree. This situation is likely to exist well into 2016. Here is a screenshot showing the warning that these two Sidney Tanners cannot be merged at this time:
The problem is that people are constantly adding information and making changes to both of these duplicate individuals. Let me say that again. There are people adding content to both of these individuals who are the SAME PERSON. They cannot be merged. When FamilySearch finally transfers all the information from new.FamilySearch.org, which of these duplicate individuals will survive? Which of the duplicate individuals will retain all the sources and other information added to each? What if the person undertaking to merge the two makes wrong choices about what information survives the merger and what does not?
I need to emphasize that these two duplicate individuals in the Family Tree have each been extensively modified. They both have sources, notes, additional information and discussion material. One of them happens to be missing the wife and children of the line I come through. Because they both appear with the same father, in this case, they do not each start their own pedigree. But there is another issue here.
Let's take this another step, what if I do a Find for Sidney Tanner? I find at least 13 people in the Family Tree named Sidney Tanner without an additional middle name. But fortunately, at this point, I only find the two Sidney Tanners showing in the John Tanner family group. Are there more out there?
For this step, I use the RootsMagic program for a more in depth search of the Family Tree data. I find that there are two Sidney Tanner's that appear with the same Person Identifier Number; KWJ6-DZX. RootsMagic cannot solve the merge problem.
The solution, for now, is to make sure that the copies of the person that cannot be merged contain the same information. Then, no matter which of the copies survives, all of the contributed information will also survive.
In recent statements, FamilySearch has stated that they will not be addressing this problem until after new.FamilySearch.org program is finally taken down and is no longer online at all. See FamilySearch Announces Milestones for Retirement of new.FamilySearch.org. Read what is said carefully and you will see that they are saying the issue with "gateway or IOUS" ancestors will not be addressed until after new.FamilySearch.org is taken down.
I wish we could shout this one from the rooftops! Thank you, James. Everyone needs this information especially the Mayflower descendants! Honestly it is like some kind of a Pilgrim's War going on on those lines. All the adding and deleting and editing is nuts. What a complete waste of time at this point. Thank you for yet another reminder! Bonnie
ReplyDeleteI had approximately 108 changes made to one of the Mayflower ancestors in one week. Good name for this, you might see a blog post on the Pilgrim War. Do you mind if I use your idea. I would be glad to attribute the idea to you.
DeleteWhat I did with my gateway ancestor is decide which record would most likely be kept (KW ID). Then I systematically moved all wives and children from the record most likely to be dumped to the KW record. I also moved all discussions, notes, sources, alternate names, photos, docs, stories by screen capture or original scans to the KW record. Everything. Then I went to the record to be dumped, and deleted relationships from him so he was standing alone, and put a discussion entitled "Don't add anything to this record", and a note in Other Information both with my contact information repeated if anyone had questions. This took a while since my ancestor was a polygamist with 9 living wives. But by doing this, all relatives, no matter from which wive they descended, were steered automatically to the correct KW record. He had tons of sources to move, but it is do-able and I think preferable instead of waiting until end of 2016. I heard from several relatives thanking me for doing this.
ReplyDeleteYes, a very good suggestion. That would certainly be one way to handle the situation.
DeleteKW records indicate they are a church membership record. This means that when we are able to do merges that these records will stay and everything else will merge into them. I hope this makes sense!
ReplyDeleteWell, that isn't exactly correct. When you do a merge, the Church membership record may or may not be correct. The person merging the two records can choose what facts, sources etc. they want to merge. In this case both records have extensive notes, sources, Alternate Information and discussions. The question is, assuming the "membership" record is the one "everything" is merged into, how much of this information will end up in the final surviving record?
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