* Deleting Duplicate Media/ Merging two family trees

[princecharlie123]

Hi there,
Two things to resolve please!!
I have V7 and have tried to merge two family trees which are basically the same family members but contain different information. As a result Ihave ended up with a vast amount of duplicate media see below!!
It seems that you can only merge two sets of media at a time .Is there a quicker way of doing it?

Secondly I am finding it very difficult to understand how to merge to trees together in a proper manner without getting this result.Is there an idiots video which might help me rathe than the rather complicated (to me!) written instructions.
Many thanks
Jerry

[tatewise]

I suspect you have not followed the crucial advice to check EVERY tab in the Merge File dialogue.
Fundamentally, that is all that is involved in the 'proper manner' ~ check every tab.
It is all too easy to focus on the Individuals tab and forget the others, but that is why there is the warning about how many items have not be checked when you click Merge.
Pin a big note somewhere saying CHECK EVERY MERGE TAB.

So when merging the two files you have not opened the Media tab and matched the Media Records.

If you have skipped the other tabs then you may have duplicate Families, Notes, Sources, etc, etc, too!

With the number of duplicated Media in your screenshot, it seems you have repeated that mistake many times over.

It is only possible to Edit > Merge Records in pairs and then you must clean up the duplicated Media files with the (n) suffixes.

[princecharlie123]

Ok thanks very much for that info but how do you check everything?

[tatewise]

Checking everything can be a laborious task if both the Project and the merged GEDCOM are large, especially if there is a lot of overlap between them.

In the following screenshot, Individual Records are being reviewed on the Individuals tab.
Any that have Action * Merge * and Match Compatible have synchronised perfectly and can be skipped.
Any that mention Discards or Keep or * Add * need closer inspection.
Click on the [+] icons to expand the record and reveal subfields each of which will have an Action with >> prefix.
If comfortable with what data is being merged, kept, added, or discarded then do nothing.
But if two data items need merging then hold down Ctrl key while selecting both items and click Match button lower left.
There are similar buttons to Unmatch, Retain or Discard data items.

MergeIndividuals.png (85.66 KiB) Viewed 1625 times

In the following screenshot, Media Records are being reviewed on the Media tab.
Notice how the same Records exist in both lists. I have manually Matched the first two Records.
If that is not done then duplicated Media Records will be created.
The same process must be repeated on each tab: Families, Notes, Sources, etc...

MediaMerge.png (115.84 KiB) Viewed 1625 times

[princecharlie123]

Great . I think I am getting there.
So if it says keep and there are entries in only one column do you do nothing?
If it says keep, null merge or add you have to match the two columns by cntrl /match.
Is that correct?
Basically you dont touch anything that says Merge
Sorry to be so thick!!

[tatewise]

Yes, generally that is correct.

But watch out for * Merge * Discards as that is discarding data that you need to review.

It is, of course, possible for Keep and * Add * to apply where there are no matching records or data.

Just use common sense to Match what FH has not automatically matched that should be matched.

But the most important advice is to check every tab.

[princecharlie123]

Ok many thanks for taking the time to help me .Very useful and kind.
Cheers