Verify that the people being merged were created as same person and not edited to be same person
If we are going to lose the ability to undo a merge once edits have been made to the surviving person, can we figure out a way to prevent a person from being edited into a person that they were not originally meant to be?
For instance, this person was created in 2018 as William Farquharson. At some point, someone edited him to be an Alexander Edward. And then someone else came along later and merged him with another Alexander Edward. Now everything pertaining to William Farquharson has been lost.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/changelog/L1Q6-K8Y
From what I can tell, this original William Farquharson was intended to be William Farquharson who was baptized 19 Jul 1722 at St. Nicholas in Aberdeen. These were the first details entered in this profile when it was created. So how can we make sure that it is clear that this is who he was originally intended to be and any details added should pertain to this William. For instance, if his name is changed, it is only to add a middle initial or suffix. His name should not be changed in a way that makes him an entirely different person.
I have seen this happen so many times where someone is morphed into someone that they are not and then someone comes along later and thinks they are a duplicate, but they actually aren't.
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I reposted this in a different group, but I'm not sure how to delete it from here.
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You can't delete it, but it was fine to post it here.
Just want to correct one comment. We have never been able to undo a merge after the surviving profile has been edited. We have only been able to restore the deleted profile then had to repair the surviving one.
You do raise a good point, though, that it would be great to see that initial information easily.
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@redheadkelly This is a great example of a hijacked profile. Thank you for this. I think merge and the updated change log are both benefitted by this example.
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Would it be helpful to show the original intended person on the merge like we do on the merge analysis:
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I like this new merge analysis. Or maybe it’s not new? I’ve never seen it before, I guess.
I like the idea of displaying the initial name and details somewhere during a merge. As @Gordon Collett has pointed out, there may be some issues with that because profiles were initially created or imported with incorrect or conflated details. I’ve seen this issue too.
But I feel like it would at least prevent the issue where William Farquharson was edited to be Andrew Edwards and then merged by someone later into another Andrew Edwards. That’s the one I came across most recently.
It does seem like the messaging is improved with this new merge experience. I feel like this “original information “ could be added in a way that is helpful even if the original information wasn’t correct for the intended person.It might at least make people stop and think. And it will make it very clear that who the person was originally intended to be is important because there does seem to be maybe an initial confusion on how the tree works. And people think they should just change someone into a completely different person if they’re not the right parent or spouse or something, instead of just disconnecting them.
Making it clear somewhere that edits and merges should be true to the initial internet, even if the initial details were incorrect, seems like it would help people grasp quicker how the tree works.
I also like the idea of the notes being displayed during merge. Like I can write a note under a birth date that says… this person is often confused with his cousin. His birthdate is blah and his cousins birthdate is blah.
I would LOVE it if people could see this when they’re merging.
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Yes, that new Merge Analysis view is relatively new as in probably within the last six months. It just appeared one day in the change log:
I don't know what the limitations are, but it does not always appear. I think there is a year cutoff before which it is not available.
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