Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Monday, June 27, 2016

A New Beginning? The FamilySearch Family Tree Saga -- Part Four: The Merging Begins


Who would think that this screen was a reason for celebration? This was my "test case" of an entry that could not previously be merged. The fact that I can now merge these two duplicates signals the dawn of a new age on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree.

However, no matter how important this particular change is, there are still some residual problems that cannot be yet immediately solved. Here is an example of duplicates that cannot, even now, be merged.


The reason given is "These two people cannot be merged. Both people must be in the same public or private space." I can't figure this out and will have to send in a Feedback.

This duplicate will have to be resolved by some other method. However, there were two duplicates and one of them could be merged.

The next previously blocked merge goes through without a hitch.



Congratulations!!! FamilySearch.org you finally did it.

12 comments:

  1. This is indeed great news. I have several of the "historic/gateway" ancestors that I am anxious to get to work on. I already have a problem with one of them - William White 1584 – Deceased • 9H8V-T53. Because this is a "read-only" record I am unable to make the appropriate corrections to it. Hopefully, the find folks at familysearch will oblige and turn of the flag. In addition to preventing making any changes to this record, it is impossible to merge individuals who are connected to him.

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  2. Congratulations on your perserverence cheerleading Family Tree even while you waited for it to become possible to work on so many of your own ancestors. I know this was a big day for you.

    I also was able to do a little clean up, but got stopped by a locked record. Maybe you can write about locked records and the procedure for requesting clean up. I'm hesitant to contact support because it is a huge mess, but I'd like to see examples of someone getting a really messy locked family cleaned up and what support requires to let it happen.

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    1. The locked or "Read Only" records are not necessarily permanent. We haven't bothered to work on any of the read only records and so I have no experience with them. I do have a lot of very "messy" ancestors however. Someone else may have had experience trying to work on one of the read only records?

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  3. You can't work on a read-only record. You can only look, right now.

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    1. How easy is it to have someone at Data Quality (or whatever it is called) to fix read-only records that a patron has done extensive research on? Should we sit back and wait for someone at Family Search to make the changes? Or do they appreciate input from a researcher to guide them? I have a few ancestors, including some from the early New England time who are "read only", and I have done extensive research on two or three of them, and there is a bit of controversy about how they should appear in the data base. I would like to be helpful, but not annoying at the same time. I am sure the kind folks at Family Search have priorities.

      Just asking.

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    2. I am sure that any feedback to FamilySearch on the "Read Only" folks would be appreciated. They need all the help they can get.

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  4. James, is LNHY-VX3 a Person you created? Typically this error would be when encountered when you try to Merge a Public Person (dead) with a Private Person (in your living). But the lifespan seems to indicate they are both dead. Can you provide any background on this Person?

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    Replies
    1. No, the entry shows that the person was created by FamilySearch. So that may be the reason. But why is it still showing as a private person when there is a death date? That is the real question here.

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    2. I submitted a "case" to have a read-only record unlocked. There is a procedure to do it. I was pointed to this article. https://familysearch.org/ask/salesforce/viewArticle?version=ka230000000Zbj6AAC&lang=en_US
      I am not sure how long this will take, but I have the feeling that some data processor will take a look at this and get it did. Standing by

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    3. I believe that in at least some cases, the flag was set arbitrarily. One day I was working on one of my ancestors without a problem, and then the next day, the read-only flag was set. There was no explanation.

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  5. THis is not an issue with Read-only Persons. THey have done some initial investigation and this is an unexpected case (Dead Person in your Private space created by FS). We're supposing you did Merge-by-id and that these two did not show up in a Dup Person search right?

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  6. In the case above that I came across it is a read-only record problem. They have designated some records as read-only this does not allow editing of the individual and the merging or deletion of relationships of records that are attached to the read-only records.

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