RootsWeb.com Mailing Lists
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    1. Re: [TGF] How to Undo Merges on FamilySearch Family Tree
    2. Connie, There is nothing that you can do in FS-Family Tree to reverse wrongly combined individuals if the combination took place in new.FamilySearch (to be distinguished from reversing a 'merge' made in FS-FT). Data from new.FamilySearch has been and is being migrated to FS-FT as changes are made. While the two programs are working with mostly the same database, FS-FT can not read/interpret all of the data that is displayed for those who have access to n.FS, including the "records" (that is, purported individuals) that were combined to produce a purported summary person. The only way to *reverse* bizarrely combined individuals is to contact support, give the PID and as much explanation as you can muster regarding why the combination is incorrect. I have been seeing supposed individuals in FS-FT that are obviously the result of combining several persons by completely different names, with anachronistic wives/parents, children with wrong surnames, etc. It is impossible to discern from the fragmentary "History of Changes" in FS-FT whether the resulting vital dates/places even went with the resulting combination. Official policy at present seems to be that users should just make any needed corrections in FS-FT and forget about what might be lost due to erroneous "combine" operations. But there are other problems with doing this, including -- where do the extraneous spouses and parents belong?? While such changes in n.FS were supposedly blocked to normal users a couple of months ago, combine/uncombine are still taking place through 3rd-party software. Some report that this software is making changes that the users do not themselves initiate. FamilySearch seems unwilling or unable to block this activity. The underlying problem is that there is nothing purpose-built within the FS-FT program to enable reading what happened in a series of combine or separate actions (and the full change history) that took place within new.FamilySearch. Underlying that was that the n.FS program does not allow true merges, just aggregations of data with certain elements more or less designated as preferred, which is what has been migrated to FS-FT. If your actual situation is the result of a true "merge" within FS-FT, there is a way to reverse it. On the person page, click to open Latest Changes in the blue box at right (the link at bottom to 'show all'). When you find a merge entry, click "reference" at right and you should get an undo option. This does not always work first time around. The program can be very unresponsive -- it is not a problem with your computer, cache, cookies, etc. Sometimes you will get a message that the reversal could not be performed, but try it anyway and then go back to the individual's page you were looking at and refresh -- it might have worked. It took me days to fix one of these. If you have other nagging issues with this clumsy program, feel free to contact me for a possible suggestion. I am not an expert but have been fiddling with FS-FT for several months. Best wishes, Judy Connie writes: Can someone point me to an easy to understand explanation of what I need t o do on FamilySearch FamilyTree to correct situations where several men of the same name have been inappropriately merged into one person? Example: An ancestor with a common name was married only once. However, he is showing on FamilyTree with 3 wives. I have no idea whether the two other wives belong to one man or two, but they certainly don't belong to my ancestor.

    01/27/2013 10:44:44