@lauracorbin1 I have always assumed that the death info doesn't move automatically because the surviving person already says "deceased" (so there is something there—even if not a date and/or place).
That's the only field which HAS to have something in it—Living or Deceased—so it is not actually blank before the merge.
I might be wrong, but that makes sense to me. :)
Why is FamilySearch not moving over "Death" information when merging two individuals?
For awhile, I've noticed a problem when I merge two individuals. Normally FamilySearch automatically moves information from the left-hand side (the individual being deleted) to the right-hand side (the surviving individual) if the person on the right-hand side doesn't have anything in that column. For example, if the surviving individual has no birth information and that column is blank, but the person being deleted does, the system moves over the birth information. Then you can still "undo" an item if you want to, but at least it moves it over originally. The only category that doesn't seem to be true for is "death" information. If the surviving person doesn't have anything regarding death, the system still doesn't move it over when you go to step 2 of the merging process; you have to manually "replace" the info from the left.
I am attaching a screenshot of the problem. You can see how the burial information has been moved over (I did not do that manually), but the death info shows up as blank on the right side even though there is information on the left side. Again, I did not "undo" anything. This is exactly how it appeared when I went to step 2.
To recreate it, you can also check out an example I created. I made a new record for Klara Hager, P9V1-7V2. I will attempt to link the video I made, and hopefully it shows up properly.
I am guessing this is a programming error.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DLFVKABQvx4-hqF3IssY3xPjv6UuEst-/view
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@Jack Hern has provided the "simple" explanation here. The Death field is different from the others in that it is the one field in the Vitals section of the Details page that one cannot "Delete". An explanation was given to me some years ago by @joemartel - hopefully, he is still around and can address the matter raised here, as I am convinced it relates to that same issue of the Death field (always having the Deceased / Living status marked), hence never being truly "blank". In short, if the engineers are willing or able to change the programming of the Death field - so we can actually "delete" rather than "blank out" / rewrite the data during an edit - then they can probably deal with the specific issue raised here.
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@lauracorbin1 By a merge the info for death, marriage etc. allways has to be done manually by drag and drop von left to right. As long as I use FS this has been like this. Only birth is moved over automatically.
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@Lars van Ravenzwaaij That is not true. You can see in my video that it moves over birth, custom event (the baptism), and all family members that are different. In the picture you can see where it moved over the burial info in the vitals section. That absolutely only section it did not move over was death.
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@lauracorbin1 I have always assumed that the death info doesn't move automatically because the surviving person already says "deceased" (so there is something there—even if not a date and/or place).
That's the only field which HAS to have something in it—Living or Deceased—so it is not actually blank before the merge.
I might be wrong, but that makes sense to me. :)
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@lauracorbin1 I do not speak of family members. I speak of death, marriage and divorce. I've never experienced that to be automated. In fact I just did a merge, where those 3 events had to be carried over by klicking on the right pointed arrow.
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This is the answer. The field only auto-populates IF it was blank previously. The deceased note blocks this, and during a merge you will want to copy and paste - or replace as the choice allows.
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Thank you, everyone. My point really was it seems very inconsistent. The field is "blank", but because it HAS to be deceased or living, it's counting as if something was there. So why can't the system be fixed to automatically move over the death info like it really should? I sent an email to FamilySearch originally, and whomever answered my question agreed that it seemed inconsistent. They said to post in here because that was the way to deal with "troubleshooting," which does not seem to work either since it's just us all talking back and forth. While it may be "just how things have always been done," honestly it seems like a change in coding could be made to correct it and simply move over the required information. Why move over some things and not others?
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@Ashlee C. would it be possible to escalate Laura's valid point to the engineers please? Replacing 'Deceased' with an actual date can't in practice endanger anything worth keeping.
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Just to illustrate, as you will see / probably already know, there is no "Delete" option here. One just has to clear all the detail manually then type in the revised / correct data in the then blank fields. (Unlike with the other Vitals, where you can remove all data with one click, then replace.) I'm sure it's the exact same problem that is attached to the merging issue.
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