FT database indexing glitch
This is a report for escalation to engineers. I do not need help.
KH8K-XJ7 Ursula Zentner is appearing in Find search results today even though deleted more than a month ago, on September 5, 2021.
Answers
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This is not a problem or error at all. Deleted records remain in the Find search list.
FamilySearch is designed so that when a merge has been done by a patron, one record for the person Survives and the other record is simply marked as deleted. But the record marked as deleted is not expunged from FamilySearch. That record is kept in a special place in case we need it again.
Deleted records have a band of black across them with DELETED RECORD written across the band.
This is deliberate plan to help us any time that someone has accidentally merged 2 records, thinking that the person in each is the exactly the same person, but is not the really same person at all.
It's a safety net and I'm so glad it is there because I need it and have used it.
All merges and other changes to a person in FamilySearch are available for us to see. They are listed on the person's page in - LATEST CHANGES (on the right hand side of a person's page)
I have at times have gone to the deleted records to look at them just to make sure of certain things.
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Deleted records remain in the Find search list.
I do enormous numbers of merges, and usually after a few days merged PIDs do not appear in Find results.
PIDs deleted by merge do remain in My Changes, and Change Log on the surviving PID, so I go there to recover them.
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Gail is correct. I just checked IDs that I "deleted" in a merge as far back as 2018. They can all still be found in using the FIND feature.
Possibly records deleted other than in a merge (i.e. ones only we have worked on, so could delete) won't appear there, but your KH8K-XJ7 was merged with KHTN-YQR, so will continue to be found.
BTW - I found my examples as the deleted IDs continue to remain in ones Following list as well.
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Most PIDs I delete do not return in Find results, which is a good thing because seeing them again and again as I continue to work on merging duplicates would drive me nuts.
So:
- Handling of "deleted" (merged) PIDs is not consistent.
- We do not share an expectation of what handling would be desirable or correct.
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