Has something changed in merging? unmerging?

Cindy Hecker · January 3, 2021

I am unmerging 2 people and something is acting different. Today, the sources are not following the split of the men. I know sources are joined to new person when merged, but in the past when I restore a person while unmerging the sources that came with that person usually unattach from the new person and go back with the old person and that is not happening. It actually shows the source I attached to both men as if I added in back to both on the same day. When I went to the father it showed only attached to 1 son but when I go to both Roberts it shows the source as attached to each of them. For reference the men are Robert McCoy and Robert Henry Mccoy ID#s GMYCTQM and GH7TZYH. I am still untangling them and fixing the details as I know if you change vitals you have to manually correct those, but sources usually follow and I need to disconnect all the children too....this is making unmerging harder! Hoping it is just a bug to be fixed.

JeffWiseman · January 3, 2021

When you perform an "Unmerge" on a surviving PID, it totally reverses the previous merge and behaves the way that you want. In fact the surviving PID reverts back to it's pre-merged state. However, if the surviving PID of the merge is touched by anyone after the merge, an Unmerge is not possible.

In the case where an "Unmerge" is not possible, you must use the "Restore" function on the deleted PID instead. That will only restore the PID that was deleted via the merge with things that originally belonged to it. It does not touch the old surviving PID at all so you are then responsible for removing up all the inappropriate stuff in the old surviving PID that was moved there during the previous merge.

I say "inappropriate stuff" because some of the things brought over during the incorrect merge may have legitimately belonged there in the first place (i.e., those misplaced items may have actually contributed to the original incorrect merge). That reason and things which have been added by others after the merge are the reasons that a "Restore" does not undo anything on the old surviving PID. It forces you to re-evaluate everything recorded in and attached to that PID.

Glenn Cowan · January 5, 2021

I agree, sometimes the sources do not revert how I would like. I understand it is a complicated issue, so maybe part of the unmerge process would be a screen that lets you allocate the sources between the two unmerged individuals.

Marv White · March 17, 2022

Regarding unmerging, as of 17 March 2022 I can no longer find a way to undo a bad merge. Just a week ago it was easy by bringing up the person merged in and simply restoring him/her. Now you can't bring up the individual at all. Instructions seem to say to throw all these PID files out the window and rebuild the person you want. How can that possibly be correct when these PID files were originally created from old extraction records, and they are real people? How can we ignore these and build our own? I wonder how this makes sense, and in the meantime I am stuck with incorrect merges without the ability to make my pedigree accurate.

Gordon Collett · March 17, 2022

What record can you not unmerge? I don't see any difference in the unmerging process. Can you post an example?

I do see a slight and welcome change in the search process. When you search using ID, instead of getting a deleted person, you get the resultant surviving person. For example, if I search for a person I recently merged, I get this: