RootsMagic 11 organizes source citations using a three‑level structure: a Master Source at the top, one or more Citation Objects beneath it, and finally the individual Links that attach those citation objects to specific facts. A Master Source defines the shared citation template, each Citation Object stores its own citation‑detail content, and each Link connects a citation object to a particular fact for a particular person.
Because these layers behave differently, RM11 can produce two distinct kinds of duplication: duplicate citation objects and duplicate citation links. Understanding the difference is essential for knowing what the Duplicate Citation Merge tool can fix—and what it cannot.
Citation‑object duplication
RM11 allows multiple citation objects to exist under the same master source, even when their content is identical. These duplicate objects may be linked to different facts for the same person or for different people.
Running a Duplicate Citation Merge correctly identifies and merges these identical citation objects.
Citation‑link duplication
Each fact can contain one or more links to citation objects. RM11 merges citation objects but does not merge or deduplicate the links that point to those objects. After the merge, all links remain exactly as they were, even if several (attached to the same fact) now point to the same citation object. A Duplicate Citation Merge does not remove these redundant links, so they must be cleaned up manually.
BEFORE CITATION MERGE:
Master Source
│
├── Citation Object #1 ← unique citation-detail content
│ (ED=10, Page=4A, Household=33)
│
│ ├── Link → Fact A (Birth) of Person 1
│ ├── Link → Fact B (Residence) of Person 1
│ └── Link → Fact C (Occupation) of Person 2
│
├── Citation Object #2 ← identical content as Object #3
│ (ED=12, Page=5A, Household=31)
│
│ ├── Link → Fact D (Marriage) of Person 3
│ └── Link → Fact A (Birth) of Person 1
│
└── Citation Object #3 ← identical content as Object #2
(ED=12, Page=5A, Household=31)
├── Link → Fact A (Birth) of Person 1 ← duplicate link allowed
├── Link → Fact A (Birth) of Person 1 ← duplicate link allowed
└── Link → Fact E (Death) of Person 4
AFTER DUPLICATE CITATION MERGE:
Master Source
│
├── Citation Object #1 ← unique citation-detail content
│ (content unchanged)
│
│ ├── Link → Fact A (Birth) of Person 1
│ ├── Link → Fact B (Residence) of Person 1
│ └── Link → Fact C (Occupation) of Person 2
│
└── Citation Object #2 ← surviving merged object (merge of objects 2 & 3 above)
(ED=12, Page=5A, Household=31)
├── Link → Fact D (Marriage) of Person 3
├── Link → Fact A (Birth) of Person 1
├───Link → Fact A (Birth) of Person 1 ← reassigned from Object #3 above
├───Link → Fact A (Birth) of Person 1 ← reassigned from Object #3 above
│
│ *** Fact A (Birth) of Person 1 now has THREE links
│ to the SAME surviving Citation Object #2 ***
│
└── Link → Fact E (Death) of Person 4
In my opinion, the three identical links between Fact A (Birth of Person1) and citation Object #2 should be dealt with by the citation merge utility process. Is there a reason the merge utility allows these duplicates to remain?
I just tested with a small file and it had all the sources and citations merged so there were no duplicates of either. Then I had two identical people using those sources on the person (general) and fact level. When I merged there were no duplicate citations on either level.
The issue occurs if you have two or more duplicate citations (links to the same citation object) both attached to the exact same fact.
There is nothing that stops a user from manually reusing the same citation multiple times on the same fact. If you do this, it results in the condition I describe. I’m not saying RM should prevent reusing the citation multiple times on the same fact. I just want the merge citation utility to recognize such duplications and remove these duplicate citations (when they occur on the same fact).
I have seen this duplication of citations numerous times, and I am fairly certain it is a result of my using TreeShare to import sources from Ancestry. In the ideal world, this would not happen, but in an ideal world, there would be no need for a duplicate citation utility either.
I can reproduce this problem. I did the following in a test database so I wouldn’t mess up anything in my production database.
Open the Edit Person screen for a person with at least one citation.
Click on the citations to open the citations.
Slide one of the citations to see it in detail.
Memorize the citation
Unslide the citation
Be sure the fact with the focus is still the same fact. Click the Paste Citation icon and choose the Reuse option. You now have a duplicate citation.
Get out of Edit Person
Get into the main Sources tab
Run the Merge All Duplicate Sources tool just for fun. It shouldn’t have any effect on this test.
Run the Merge All Duplicate Citations tool to see what happens.
Get of the main Sources tab and back to the main People tab. Go back to where you created the duplicate citation and it will not be deduplicated.
Curiously, if when you pasted you had chosen the Paste/Copy option instead of the Paste/Reuse option, the Merge All Duplicate Citations would have worked. Indeed, that’s precisely the kind of duplication that the Merge All Duplicate Citations tool was designed to deduplicate. This is a new problem to me, but surely it has always been there ever since RM8.
I would normally think of this as a user error to get the duplication in the first place. But there needs a way to correct to error. And I don’t want to say “user error” very loud. That’s because Ancestry and TreeShare are infamous for creating duplicate citations with no user error at all. But the situation with duplicate citations from TreeShare is another kettle of fish altogether, and is far more complicated than my simple test. Suffice it to say, my simple test has replicated the error without involving Ancestry or TreeShare.
Thank you for confirming the issue. Yes, I first noticed this after I started using TreeShare about a month ago. I feel certain it came about as a result of TreeShare.
In my case, I had four such duplicates tied to a single fact. They are easy to delete, once you find them. But finding them and verifying they are indeed indentical can be very time consuming.
Perhaps it was an error on my part using TreeShare that caused this issue. Regardless, there should be an easy way of eliminating these duplicates, no matter how they came into existence.
That’s because Paste/Copy creates a new citation object, whereas Copy/Reuse simply adds another link to the existing citation object.
The citation merge utility operates at the object level, not the link level. It identifies citation objects that are identical and merges them. When you reuse a citation object, you simply add a link to the existing object, but there is still only one object.
Furthermore, as you demonstrated, nothing prevents that second link from point right back to the same fact as a previous link. Multiple links to the same fact are permitted. We need a tool to merge these links.