I tried to do a merge for the first time in rootsmagic - I used ‘manual merge’ as the person I wanted to merge I could not find in ‘merge duplicates’ list that came up. I though the person along with their parents would merge, but they did not. In the list of names I have the person and then a + with the same name. How do I undo this and how would I merge the person alongwith their parents? I was a little nervous in doing a ‘automerge’ as I have many individuals with the same names but they are different people.
Thanks
The + before a name indicates an alternate Name, not a duplicate. Turn on Show Record Number in the Index tricolon dropdown and those individuals with the same record number are true duplicates. Also only events/facts that are identical will merge. If there is even an extra space in one part of the data they will not merge but be duplicated.
I think you meant “those individuals with the same record number are NOT true duplicates”.
At the same time your are turning on the display of Record Numbers, you can turn off the display of Alternate Names. I think for most users most of the time, it’s advantageous to display the Alternate Names. But when you are in the process of merging people, it might be advantageous to turn off the display of Alternate Names. It can be less confusing that way.
All of RM’s various merge processes are one person at a time. It will not merge a person and also the person’s parents. Well, an automatic merge might accidentally merge a person and also the person’s parents, but even an automatic merge is doing it a person at a time. It’s possible that the duplicate records for a person a identical enough to merge automatically and the duplicate records for the person’s parents are not identical enough to merge automatically.
There’s no "undo"other than to restore a prior backup. Said another way, it’s always good to backup before doing any major db operations.
Agree, poor choice of words on my part.
Ok, so I somehow then created that alternate Name when I was trying to merge as the alternate name was not there before I tried to merge. What I was trying to do was merge the families of cousins that had married. So what would be the best route to take now that I have created this alternate name? There is no alternate name for the either sets of parents nor are they entered in twice. What I do have is 2 sets of parents - one I have an additional brother that is on his own that I could delete and just add back later since I do not have any further info on him. I do see what you mean by record number, I found those uner People List and the number is the same right now.
If you merge two names that are slightly different, you end up with alternate names. So if you merged John F. Doe with John Doe, the assumption is that you don’t want to lose data. So you will end up with one name as the primary and the other as an alternate.
If you I read correctly, you know have two sets of parents for your merged person. Are these two sets of parents unique? As in do they have the same record number? Usually when you merge two persons and they have their own set of parents, you then have to merge the parents (and siblings if they are duplicated)…and so forth as far back as you have ancestors.
Sorry I did not really explain that very well. In the photo you’ll see the only reason why 2 sets of parents are there is because there is a brother that I could delete and add back later on if that is the easiest way since I do not have further info on him except for his name. The parent are only entered in once and there is only one record number.
