My father and grandfather have exactly the same names. For illustration: James Andrew Smith Jr and James Andrew Smith Sr. I have entered my father (Jr) first. I entered my grandfather next. I included the Suffix Sr. I get the dialog below. I am confused.
Why does RM register a Suffix Jr and a Suffix Sr as the same names? This warning seems out of place.
Who is the person above. Above what?? Above the button? There are at least two or more names in the field above the button. This button text is unclear.
Following on this confusion, I clicked Use the above as father. Thereafter, my father and grandfather had the same suffix. If I changed one to Jr, both became Jr. If I changed one to Sr, both became Sr. And yet the tree relationship (father-son) was unaltered. This behavior seems to be an error that should not be permitted.
It’s merely a informative warning that another person ( or sometimes person(S) ) with those Given Names and Surnames exist already and could potentially be the same person. Prefix and Suffix do not come into consideration and every John Doe “match” would generate the same. It can help avoid duplication slipping in via innocent human error. Use the Continue adding “option” if you’re sure of the uniqueness.
When this page comes up as Ken B said , it is asking you IF the new person is the same as the person who is already in your database ( person above)-- if they are different people, you should click on Continue adding new father-- BUT you said you clicked on use the above as father, so you basically made the son as his own father…
My question is what view are you using–Family, pedigree or Descendant view-- as in Pedigree or Family View, you would automatically notice something was wrong in your test database, I did exactly what you said you did and here are 2 of the views
Family View
This is why when you change one of the James( in my example ) to SR, it changes all of them to Sr— If you turn on the RIN # under settings, you will see they have the same number.
If your family or pedigree view looks like the above, all you need to do is unlink James ( in my example) ONCE from his parents and it will unlink all-- then go back in and add SR again using CONTINUE this time…
OK. Prefix and suffix are not part of a name in finding duplicates. Got it.
As to fixing the problem … I simply deleted the grandfather and re-entered it using the other button. Crude – yes. Effective – yes. Should this have been necessary – not as I would see.
One confusion remains. Who is above in the dialog? Above what?
In essence, when the concern that should be addressed by this dialog is as simple as this …
… the dialog could be improved by being greatly simplified to something akin to this …
If the people are without any dates they are more likely to show up as possible duplicates. I make sure everyone has a birthdate even if its an estimated date that I source myself. Then there is no confusion, especially across generations.
