Why won't these records merge?

Robert Givens

Trying to merge  Evander T Blevins

Male

1852 – Deceased

 •

L7BD-ZD1

and 

Evander T Blevins

Male

1854 – Deceased

 •

LXD1-JY5

I get "These two people cannot be merged because they are in different trees." What in the heck is this???

Áine Ní Donnghaile

I get the message that they cannot be merged because one has conditions that prohibit changes.

Bryan54

The duplicate records can now be merged.

Robert Givens

Anie - I appreciate that answer but what condition is prohibiting changes. What is this "different trees" thing? That makes no sense.

Alan E. Brown

@Robert Givens The "different trees" message means that one person is in your private space and the other is in the public space. It's rare that a deceased person will be in a private space, but it can happen if the person has a vital event in a sensitive country. Occasionally the process that looks for connections to sensitive countries makes a mistake. But in any case, you need help from a FamilySearch data administrator to fix it. It looks like Bryan54 fixed this one for you by moving LXD1-JY5 from the private space to the public space, and then you were able to merge them.

Robert Givens

@Alan E. Brown thank you for the full answer. As a former Data Admin I appreciate this detailed answer. I never thought of Private Space and Public Space as being different Trees. Interesting.

Bob