On 05-21-2011 17:15, Tom Wetmore wrote: > once you merge you loose your research history Unless you intentionally attach your reasons for merging to the record somehow. -- Wes Groleau There are two types of people in the world … http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1157

Wes, Tom: >Once you merge you loose your research history. Wes: >>Unless you intentionally attach your reasons for merging to the record somehow. You can attach a reason if you merge, but that doesn't enable an "undo" operation. Imagine the state of affairs after merging a third or fourth record. Imagine the complexity that would have to be added to the record to allow undos at that point. Merging is evil. You never want to do it. Merging is not summarizing. You want the "tree" of all evidence that goes together to create the final conclusion persons. That is the "true map" of your reasoning, your thoughts laid bare. If you change your mind all you do is rearrange your trees. No fuss, no muss. The final conclusion persons should summarize the facts that you believe best characterize all the information gleaned from all the evidence. There are very smart ways to do this, including simply letting the conclusion person "inherit" the information from the evidence records in cases where there is no conflict of information. Genealogy is history. History is based on researching records. Records are holy. Merging records destroys them. Don't mess with the records! Smile, smile. Tom Wetmore