Hidden Duplicate Records on the FamilySearch Family Tree

The issue of duplicate individual records on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree is far from over. However, significant progress has been made by those programming the website to detect and advise users of the existence of some of the duplicates. Despite this progress and the notifications now available on the website, there are a huge number of "hidden" duplicates that can only be detected while using the research functions and through finding additional duplicates while merging those duplicates that have already been found.

For example, if I use the search link to FamilySearch to search for records for the same individual above, I find four records:

You can tell if a person has a duplicate by looking at the ID numbers. But first, you have to determine if you think some or all of these suggested records apply to your person. In this case, all four records seem to apply to this Thomas Chattell from the exact same place, Orton Waterville, Huntingdonshire, England. The whole process is fairly complicated because, in this case, there are presently only three sources attached to this person and the Family Tree shows that he had two wives and a total of 12 children. There are also four record hints. However, if you look above at the first screenshot, you can see that there are two suggested duplicates. Their ID numbers are 9KJW-CH7 and L7MH-GTD. The person in the entry has the ID number of 96XZ-JQM. So, if all three of these people are the same, then there are two duplicate found by FamilySearch. When we go back to the four suggested records found, we see that three of the four are already attached to people who are now potential duplicates if we determine that the records found apply to the primary person presently in our part of the Family Tree. The ID numbers of the three people with potentially applicable records are 94M1-VNS and two individuals with the ID number the same as the primary person: 96XZ-JQM. So now we have another potential duplicate not yet found by the FamilySearch program.

If this seems complicated, it is. To discover the hidden duplicates, you need to click on the pedigree icon that shows that the record is already attached to a person in the FamilyTree. If the record should be attached to the primary person then there is a duplicate.

But that is not all. If I decide that the record should have been attached to my person, then I will usually find that the whole family has been duplicated. In this case, it appears that one wife is duplicated and one child. But as you continue adding sources, merging duplicates, and verifying the records, you may get into a "Merging Storm" where you find dozens of duplicates. I have spent an entire day with one family as duplicate after duplicate was merged and a new set of duplicates discovered.

If you need help with the basic merging process, I suggest working through the Merging section on The Family History Guide. See Project 1, Family Tree, Goal 11: Merging Duplicate Records.

By the way, before I would spend any time on this particular individual, I would move come closer to the present and make sure that the same problems did not exist with earlier generations. In this case, I am also suspicious that there might really be two generations combined in the same individual because of the age of the husband when he supposedly died.

To summarize, I would first go back a few generations to verify whether or not this person was really related to me and then work my way back in time until I got back to this person and then I would add in all the applicable sources, do the merges, and then keep working until I ran out of sources or merges. Then I would be ready to do some more research.