Initial Contributions needs to be on the actual merge page instead of waiting for the merge analysis

HESM

The intended identity of a PID is extremely important to prevent hijacking sources, relationships, and temple work. For example, if the record is created for John Smith, and ordinances are performed for John Smith, but then the record is changed to say William Smith, then it looks like William has ordinances when he actually doesn't. Then when someone merges into another copy of William Smith, the merge will appear to be appropriate when it really isn't because the PID doesn't actually belong to William Smith at all, it belongs to John Smith. This will be discovered if a patron then takes the time to scroll all the way to the bottom of the merge analysis screen to check the initial contributions, but that is really coming too late. The initial contributions need to be noted BEFORE a merge takes place. I typically do this by the inconvenient process of going to each of the PIDS, going into the changes page, scrolling all the way to the bottom to check the initial identity of the record, checking for what merges have already been done, checking the merge analysis for those, and then finally going back to the merge. This process would be so much easier if we could just get those initial contributions listed at the merge screen itself instead of waiting until we have already blindly merged to tell us that the record we just merged was actually hijacked into the wrong person and instead of merging, we should have restored the identity.

Rhonda Budvarson

@HESM thank you for your input. This has been discussed previously, and a ticket has been created for this request.