How do you separate two people with the same names but having the same ID?

RichardDouglas3

There are two Elijah Barnett's both born in 1776 (one possibly in NC, and both possibly in SC), one who married Rosannah Jenkins (LCVP-FD2) in SC and died in SC in 1842 and another who married Mary James (9ZWN-TX9) in SC and died in Williamson County, IL about 1850. Both are identified as LCVP-DNW with those spouses and applicable children. Both families are documented in Federal census data and there is a will for the one who died in 1842. The question raised by researchers is with regard to the parents of these Elijah's since there are some records indicating both could have Joseph (KGST-4WW) and Lucy Wade (L4QY-F2M) Barnett as parents (including DNA results). Is there someway to assign a separate ID for one of them to continue tracing family members?

Wayland K Adams

Hi - Thanks for the question. Yes, it is possible to create separate records for Elijah. Situations like this are many times created by merges. In this particular case, there have been 3 merges completed with record LCVP-DNW being the surviving record . The merged records are LT29-J3R, LRJQ-5XX, and L8W6-TYK. You can open each one of those records (even though they are deleted) and look at the history of changes. Then if appropriate you can restore one or more of the records. Doing this will create a separate record for Elijah. Here are the more detailed instructions for restoring a deleted record.

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-restore-a-deleted-record-for-a-person-in-family-tree

RichardDouglas3

Thanks Wayland!

Wayland K Adams

You are very welcome Richard