Are there ways to undo major errors (like merging multiple different individuals)?
I found part of the tree had been edited by one user in a way that does not fit the names, locations, or family connections. It combined three or more families. This was done by a series of merges, and appear to be all in error. Is there anyone or any mechanism that can revert these to an earlier unmerged state in recognition that these actions were all by one or two identified users that made errors? I can deconstruct these errors, but it will take many hours, and may introduce new errors or erase the work of prior contributors that are correct, but might not have supporting records attached.
Answers
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In short, no - there is no easy way of correcting such a mess, and certainly unlikely to be anybody willing to take on such a task, unless they, too, have a close interest in one of these branches.
As a first step, you might wish to contact the users you have identified as carrying out most of the work that has led to this situation. However, I have usually had little joy in doing this, either receiving no response at all, or something to the effect that they got their information from a family bible, or a tree they had found on another website and believed it to be correct. In cases where the work / changes were carried out some years ago, it is possible the contributors are no longer engaged in work on Family Tree. Even with more recent work, the individual might be very inexperienced, or downright careless, so their response would not really be of much help.
Fortunately, I have a fair amount of time on my hands - otherwise, I would have found it very difficult to cope with the similar problems I have encountered over the years. From time to time I find myself spending not just hours, but several days trying to sort out who-belongs-where, when another user has seen fit to connect individuals / families of similar identity, whereas - in many cases - there appear to be no detectable relationships involved.
If you do have limited time to set aside for this exercise, just don't panic about resolving the issue overnight. Just take your time and work slowly and methodically through the various profiles until, hopefully, you do eventually manage to present an accurate reflection of the facts.
Remember, it is not just the relationships and vitals detail you you need to amend, but sources and anything else that is not relevant to an individual will have to be detached as well. One thing that is easy to overlook is the removal of items found under the Other Information section on the main page of the profile. For example, I occasionally forget to remove an 1851 Residence (added when an incorrect census source was attached by another user), which then looks rather silly when I have amended the profile to show the individual in question died in 1820!
In summary, for each person involved, work your way through the Change Log, check the Sources and Collaboration sections (detaching / deleting incorrectly added items). Finally, check over the Profile page to ensure all the facts / inputs really do apply to that individual. As you no doubt realise, all this will involve removal / reinstatement of relationships. You should be able to correct some items directly from the change log - e.g., when trying to restore / unmerge individuals who have been merged in error.
Also, if possible, try to reattach sources to the individuals they actually do belong to. If you do know, for example, the ID to which that burial record should have been attached, when removing it you should click on Review Relationship, whereby you will be able to detach the source from the "wrong" person and reattach it to the correct profile in one action.
Hopefully, others will add their own suggestions here, but the direct answer to your question is, yes, it will probably be a painful, drawn-out task, but ultimately very rewarding to know you have corrected these erroneous inputs and restored families to reflect historical accuracy. Having gone through similar processes (on a number of occasions!) I wish you well in this task. Remember, be patient (don't worry about spreading this exercise over several days, or even weeks) and also to be sure to return here for any specific advice on any problems you might encounter along the way. Other users will be only too willing to do their best to advise.
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I may be about to tell you something that you already know, in which case I apologise, but…
A crucial step is to restore those profiles that have been "merge deleted" (i.e. "deleted" as the result of a merge). When they are restored, they will have their details (Vitals, Events, Facts, Family Members, etc) as they were when that profile was "merge deleted". Fortunately, included among the restored stuff, are the Sources that were attached to that profile at the time of "merge deletion".
To do this (repeating my apology if you already know this), go to Latest Changes for the Current-Profile, click Show All, and Filter to show just Merges. You can then go to the latest merge that took place, select the deleted person for that merge and go to their profile. You get all the messages that confirm that "This person was deleted by merge…" and you can select "Restore Person". After that, you see the profile as it was at the time it was merge-deleted.
Restoring the merge deleted profile does not alter the Current-Profile. (Does it remove the Source Records that are now attached to the Restored Person? I thought it did because Source Records can only be in one place at once but please check!).
Basically, you now have to look at the data for the Current-Profile, look at the sources, and remove all the bits of data that are (a) on the Restored-Profile and / or (b) no longer appropriate. (And in that sentence there is a mass of detail).
That is about the best that we can do for restoring data to the point of merging. The rest pretty much has to be done manually apart.
(There is a new facility called "Merge Analysis", which does a lot better at presenting the info on the After merge and the two Before merge profiles - I'm not sure if that's on general release yet - but it doesn't go all the way back. I can do "Merge Analysis" on a merge from 2017 abut not 2014).
And, of course, if the merge was done before 2012, in the original FamilySearch systems, you have to hack it all out manually.
You probably need lots of paper to map out what's happened and lots of coffee.
Best of luck…
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Hi Adrian Bruce1
Thank you for your detailed and useful reply. You gave me (and reminded me) of several approaches. The specific case here was the result of multiple merges (everything that seemed vaguely similar in names across several families). The user, when contacted said only "Ok tku", when I suggested the records needed to be sorted. I will look for "Merge Analysis", and budget some time—my previous efforts like this were only two sets of similar families, and I did it all manually. Thank you again for the encouragement.
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I had a couple merged into another couple in 2017, so lots of later records. A single merge for husband and wife. When I attempted to restore with a long explanation (2032 characters), the message "There was error while restoring this person. Please try again later." appeared. When I used a much shorter explanation, the restore worked.
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