* Merging

[TimS]

I have been trying to understand the intricacies of merging two files, and carried out a small test.
In the current file, the place of birth and death of one individual is London.
The new file to be merged in, is exactly the same, except that London for this individual is changed to Edinburgh.
On Merge/Compare, I look at my individual and see that FH has given a score of 237 for merging and compatible.
On expanding my individual, I see London in the current record against Keep in the Action column, and Edinburgh in the new record against Add in the Action column.
I don't want to keep London so I discard the two London entries and the final merged file only shows Edinburgh.
If I don't discard London, then both places appear under events for my individual, but London in the main screen. Why isn't it Edinburgh?
Can the new file data be made to overwrite the current data automatically or does have to laboriously check each individual? I was under the impression that any new data overwrites the old in merging.
Tim



ID:2769

[Jane]

How does the machine know which is the right information if you don't tell it? each field does not have a create date and if you were bringing in someone else's file the most recently changed item might not be the right one.

If you retain both values this creates a second 'Birth' event which you can see on the Events tab (the detail and main tabs only show the first event matching the event type)