* Rationalising/Merging Duplicate Trees/People

[rfj1001]

I've been building a series of smallish (c50 records each) dirty trees as a prercursor to slot in DNA cousins into my main tree. All that is done and the dirty trees are now 'clean'.

I'm now at a stage where I can see many individual records in both a dirty tree and my main tree that are definitely the same person/family.

I've run the 'Find Duplicate Individuals' Plug in and am working my way down the list.

However, when after I merge two matching records, there are sometimes two marriages to the same spouse as well different children coming up via a different marriage. Some, but not all, of the children are also duplicates so will also need to be merged.

Can anyone give advice on how to strip out all the un-necessary links, and in what order. (At the moment, I'm using 'unlink from parents/spouses' but I'm using guesswork on which link to remove and generally it is wrong )

Many thanks

[tatewise]

You need to check which 'duplicate marriages' involve the same couple by reviewing the Record Id of the couples.
That is easiest done in the Focus Window customized to show Record Ids.

The cause is duplicated Family Records; one from your main tree and one from the 'dirty' tree.
They are easily found on the Families tab of the Records Window sorted alphabetically because they will be side by side.
Merge those two Family Records just like you merged the two Individual records.

Next time when you merge Individuals, especially for the 2nd couple, expand and review the Spouse family entries and Match them to avoid their duplication.

Remember that Family records hold the relationships between Individual records (Husband, Wife, Children).
So if the same Individual is shown in more than one family then they are listed in more than one Family record.
Most Individuals are in two Family records; their parent's family as a child, and their spouse family as a husband or wife.
Any more than that indicates adoption/fostering, multiple partners, or DUPLICATION.

[rfj1001]

Thanks Mike,

At the moment not only are there duplicate marriages for husband and wife, as you rightly point out, but there are also two separate records for each of the spouses.

My starting point has been to merge the records of just one individual in the main tree and dirty tree

But what I'm finding is, as soon as I do I do that, FH will then (rightly) open up a selection box (eg 'Please Select required Parents') if I try to build a new ancestor diagram to see the impact of the change. I'm then working by trial and error on which family to follow and what is the next optimum merge to do,

Is there a better way?

[tatewise]

If you have only merged one Individual record from the main tree with one Individual in the dirty tree, then all the other Individual records and Family records from both trees still exist. So the merged Individual has two sets of parents, and two spouses, and has a Marriage event for both spouses. They just all happen to have the same names, dates, places, etc, but the records will have different Record Id.

Please clarify what your objective is?
I am guessing that if the 'dirty' tree is now 'clean' then you want to amalgamate that entire sub-tree into your main tree, which involves a lot of merging of many records.
If my guess is right then it will be better to do a file merge.
First, just to be on the safe side, use File > Project Window > More Tasks > Copy Project to create a working copy Project.
Use File > Import/Export > Export > GEDCOM File... and export the whole sub-tree with Media.
In the working copy Project delete that whole sub-tree.
Now use File > Merge/Compare File... and import that exported GEDCOM file.
That should automatically sync all the matching Individuals.
Then work through each tab Individuals, Families, Sources, Places, etc, etc, and check all records are merged correctly.
See FHUG Knowledge Base Merge/Compare File for further advice.

Repeat the sub-tree export, delete and merge for each sub-tree.

You may have to clean up duplicate &/or unlinked Media files afterwards.

Finally, delete the original main Project and rename the working copy Project as required.

[rfj1001]

Thanks,

My objective is to tidy up my project file, particularly to merge any duplicate people/records that appear both in my main tree and dirty tree which I think is consistent with the advice in your last post.

[tatewise]

Earlier you said your 'dirty' trees were about 50 people in size.
Presumably, only a small subset of those are duplicates of people in your main tree.
When you use the File Merge process I proposed you only have to double-check that those duplicated people and their families, sources, etc, are merged correctly. The remaining people will get imported/merged without changes.

The more familiar you can be with the duplicate people, their facts, their families and the differences between the main tree and the dirty tree copies, then the smoother the merging process will go because there should be fewer surprises.