Need suggestions on how to correct merged/deleted profiles with the least impact
Okay, I'm trying to fix my family tree- find the least impactful way of correcting a large group of merges/deletions done by multiple persons, with multiple ID's. Those who merged/deleted the ID's obviously think they are the same persons, but they are not. I have questioned this myself, and it seems there could be at least 2 - 3 people with the same name from the same era, but different families. You can imagine the number of merges and deletions done to make this down to one person.
My families path has been severed and linked to someone not related. The only reason I noticed is because I, opened my tree with my 20-year-old records planning on adding more information and presto they're gone. Someone has added and deleted/merged a different family.
Just a shout out to family Search- Thanks So far, my 20-year info and Family Search documents are spot on!
What's the best way to proceed?
Do I just start from scratch and reinvent my relative and descendants, delete that part of the tree? This seems extreme and quite destructive.
or
Do I slowly dissect the errors and make corrections? Notify all those who may start to see changes in their family trees?
I've asked the last person who has been merging/Deleting this person to stop merging Record Hints because they appear similar, and I've asked them not to try and fix the errors. I realize it was probably a rookie mistake, and many others before, started this path of destructive merges/deletions.
Regards
Answers
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@Corie33 Hard to say what may be the best approach for you without seeing the individual[s] your trying to work on… Folks would need the Person ID [PID] to take a look and give advice…
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I think a good best practice is to carefully untangle all the merges, sort them into the different people involved, then remerge them correctly as needed. This takes careful analysis and a large piece of paper to record every ID that has gone into the final result. This includes all the sub-merges. That is, someone who was the product of several merges may have been merged into the final person.
After determining all the IDs, then you should go to the very earliest entry in each of their change logs and try to determine the "intended identity" of each one. This is a very nice presentation on this concept:
I personally find these fun and satisfying projects.
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