Merging Duplicates

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For various reasons we often end up with duplicates of people in our family files and databases. This feature is often used after adding other gedcom files or additional files from a 3rd party to your own files. Other times this occurs is when you accidentally add a family in twice at different times or you are working together with others in a collaborative file and didn't see the original entries, duplicates due happen and need to be merged.

Ancestral Quest has a merge function to help you remove these duplicates.

Note that it is always a good idea to make a "backup" of your file before beginning to merge in case along the way you start making some errors in your merges.

There are a couple of ways to access the "Merge" function, one is by clicking on the ICON that looks like the one above and the other is to go to "Tools", scroll down and click on "Merge", either way it will bring up the following screen:

Note this is where you bring up the two individuals to merge. 

At the bottom of this screen you'll want to turn on "Enable Intelligent Matching" if you want the software to help you with these duplications. You also can set your own parameters concerning what constitutes matches when using this feature. This is where you'll adjust various parameters:

Note that you can adjust a large variety of things to help the software with finding your duplicates. Once you have either adjusted them or left the default settings in place, click "OK" to close this box.

Once you are back at the earlier screen click on the button that says "Next" and it will bring up the first set of matches the software finds according to the values in the Options box we were just in. They will be brought in alphabetically. Here is a sample:

Notice the different colors to help you decide if this is going to be a match you merge. The Green represents the first person or the one with the lowest RIN number, the Red represents the duplicate and the Black shows what this individual will look like when the merge is complete. 

If you are not sure you want to do that particular merge, click the "Next Match" until you find one you will merge. In the case above I was not sure so clicked the next one and that was worth merging.

Another way to merge when you know ahead of time who the duplicates are and you have written down their RIN numbers, you can click on the "Search" button under each section, the primary and the duplicate and enter those RIN numbers in. Once they are up and you are looking at them, you simply click on the "Merge" button. 

While it is common to keep the primary one as the lower RIN number, it is your choice as to which way you do your merges. Once you are finished, simply click the "Close" button and you are back at the main screen of Ancestral Quest.

Enjoy this and all the features of Ancestral Quest!

Remember Ancestral Quest is fully FamilySearch Certified!

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Happy Ancestraling...Claire ;)

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