Revert a merge made in error?
This changelog shows several merges that were all WRONG! What a mess!
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/changelog/L12Y-JLS
On 29-Aug-2018; I added this person with christening 1802 and death 1828.
After the various merges; new dates are 1805-1850 and different parents.
Questions: Is there any easy way to restore L12Y-JLS back to 29-Sep-2018; since all merges that occurred after this date were made in error. Will this "revert" also revert source attachments?
Comments
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Undo the merges. This is what I did with a number of family members merged in error, even different person merged into wrong lines. re -merge correct ones if needed.
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You do have a bit of work to do, but by using the Change Log and trying really hard to stay organized, restoring these people is not as hard as it seems at first glance.
There are three basic principles to keep in mind:
1) Two people can only be unmerged if no further editing has been on the surviving person.
2) Restoring a deleted person returns that deleted person to exactly what he was before the merge.
3) Restoring a deleted person does not make any changes to the surviving person.
4) The ID numbers and birth/death years shown in the change log beside the person icons will change retroactivity earlier in the Change Log sometime after a merge.
The Change Log you link to shows four Henrys:
1) Henry-A born christened 1802 who you first created whose ID number was L12Y-JLS originally and who was deleted in the third merge
2) Henry-B who was deleted in the first merge who had ID 96SP-V53
3) Henry-C who was deleted in the second merge who had ID 9KD8-XSK
4) Henry-D who was the survivor of the third merge and has ID G438-JMJ.
I would start by restoring all three Henrys that ended up deleted: A, B, and C. Do this by going to the detail page for each one and in the section just below the main banner for the person about the deletion, click Restore in the right lower corner of that section.
This will restore B and C to their original, pre-merge state. You will not need to do any more editing on them.
This will restore A to the state he was in just before the merge that deleted him. His record will still contain everything - all data, all sources, all children, all spouses, all parents - that the merges with B and C put on his record. You will need to use the restored records of B and C to see what is now on A that came from one of them and manually remove that information, including sources, parents, and children, from A to get A back to who he was before any merges.
Next, as part of the effort to prevent this all from happening again, you need to take D and remove from him everything that was put on him from the merge with A which would have also brought over information from B and C.
Again, your goal is to get A and D back to how they were before any merges took place.
I would predict that at most this will take you about an hour. It is not as complicated as it seems.
However, do not stop there or they are just going to get merged again by someone. Now you need to do some real work. Take whatever time it takes to research all four Henricus and get enough information on all of them with sufficient sources so it is completely clear that they are different people. You may find that B, C, and D really are the same people and should be merged.
I think the trap that may have lead to all this is that Henry B was just a name with no other information but with wife and children and may have shown up as a possible duplicate for Henry A. Getting all four records properly documented and correctly merged if some of them should be, will prevent any of them from showing as possible duplicates again.
Good Luck!
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