The profile splitting process

dontiknowyou

Often when helping a contributor work out how to split (or deconflate) a conflated profile in Family Tree successfully, meaning so that it stays that way, I stress the necessity of also removing all the mis-matched sources and events on all the involved profiles. Involved profiles may include parents, spouses, children.

The change logs of these profiles illustrate the process:

Hatevil Leighton

3 December 1809 – 16 September 1819

9S72-8R7

Hativel Leighton

25 April 1814 – 11 September 1893

K1XW-58M

Charles Henry Leighton

1 May 1818 – 1890

G7G1-J99

Basically, I spend a lot of time in the Source Linker, checking every single source attached to each profile. I find the Source Linker is the best tool available to show sources attached to the wrong persons, and children attached to the wrong parents.

Wayland K Adams

Hi Welcome to Family Search and your suggestions about doing a restore or unmerge (deconflate) on a record (profile/person page). If doing an unmerge (which is possible only if no changes have been made to the surviving record since the merge) it is pretty straight forward. Both records are return to their pre merge condition. But it is still a good idea to review attached sources and relationships on both records that may have prompted the merge. And there may be previous merges that need to be reviewed.

If post-merge changes have been made to the surviving record, then restore is the only option. In this case, the record deleted during the merge is returned as it was prior to the merge. The record that survived the merge is returned with the post merge changes plus all the things added during the merge. This could include sources, relationship, dates and places etc. Your suggestion to use the source linker is an excellent suggestion and very helpful. In addition, it is very useful to review each item of vital information and many of the other information items. For example. to review birth date and place, click on edit or the pencil next to the birth date and place in the vital information section. On the edit page in the lower left portion click on see all changes. This will display all changes made to the birth date and place with the opportunity to restore previous entries. This same process can be done for each item of vital information and other information. Of course the same thing can be done looking through all the latest changes but is a little more cumbersome.

In short, in order to prevent incorrect merges, it is important to have each record (profile/ person page) as accurate and complete as possible. This would include the records for those having a relationship to the person you are working on. This process would include making sure all attached sources are applicable (the source linker is a great tool for doing this with sources from family search) and detaching those not applicable, and should include attaching other applicable sources from record hints. Relationships should be reviewed and corrected as appropriate along with all items of vital and other information. Doing this is one of the best ways to prevent incorrect merges.

Thanks again for your suggestions.