Rootsmagic Individual Merging Observations

Modern genealogy programs contain much more information now than they ever did in the past and Rootsmagic is not short of attachment possibilities. Today we have Media and Note attachments to Sources, Events, Places and in Rootsmagic also Place Details not to mention latitude and longitude information for Places or Place Details. This additional information makes the decision of what to merge and what to append a complex one but a very important one so users retain the data they need and do not bloat their files with unnecessary identical information.

Rootsmagic did make some improvements to the problem of dropped links and information with the release of version 4.0.9.5 and also partly tackled the problem of duplication of Master Sources which were actually identical in all respects.

Running the test again of the two individuals on Rootsmagic 4.0.9.6 to test the new release did reveal that there are still some issues that really need to be dealt with.

The single individual is each file is identical in terms or Name, Events, Dates and Places. The subtle differences between them are as follows.

1. Birth event is the same in all respects including Source & Citation (should merge)
2. Burial event has same Source but different citation in each file. (should end up with both)
3. Same Place has different Note in each file (Place note should append so both retained)
4. Same Place has different Media attached in each file. (should end up with both)
5. Same Place Details has different Note in each file (note should append so both retained)
7. Lastly the Place Details in the Origin File#1 has geocode information included whereas the same Place Details in the destination File#2 has not. (resulting Place Details should have geocoding)

My basic expectation during any merge operation would be that no information or links to information are dropped, at least without proper warning or a forged log report being opened for the user after the merge operation. In my opinion merging within the same program should not allow information or links to be dropped and I hope Rootsmagic reaches that standard in the near future.

To test this yourself download the zip of the two files(487Kb), visually check the information as outlined above and then drag the individual from the Origin File#1 onto the individual in the Destination File#2 and confirm the check box that they are the same person.

Read my observations below and click on any of the thumbnails to enlarge the images.

1. The Birth Source duplicates both on the event and on the Master Source List even though both the Source and the Source Details (citations) are identical on both events. The user would be unaware of this but clicking the Automerge button is now fixed and will merge exact duplicates.



1-1. However even though the Automerge button now merges exact duplicate sources, try returning to the individuals birth event and you will notice that there still appears two Birth Source entries.

It still seems the only way to clean this up and remove the duplicated entry is to perform a manual delete operation. 

2. The burial event sourcing worked exactly as I would have expected. The Master Source being the same but the citations or any Note, Comment or Media details in the Source Details being different should and does result in two Burial Source entries. 

3. The resulting merged Place, Wayne County, Pennsylvania, now contains the Note from the Origin file and the Place Note that did exist in the receiving database (Destination file) is now dropped. 

 


4. The resulting merged Place, Wayne County, Pennsylvania, now contains the Media attachments from both the Origin and Destination file, a true merge.

5. The same Place Details, Pine Mill Cemetery, now contains the Destination File Place Details Note. Any note attached to the Place Details in the Origin file has now been dropped and lost. 

 
7. It's always nice to end on a positive note of success. I am very happy to see that where the Place Details of the Destination file had NO geocoding, after the merge the merge geocoding from the Place Details in the Origin file is now present in the Destination file Place Details.

With the exception of the Source Automerge operation being fixed all the observations above are exactly as they were before the version 4.0.9.5 release. I am hopeful that another release in the near future will finally eradicate these remaining merge problems.

Shared events being dropped during merge

One user has also reported that links to Shared Events also get broken during a merge operation. What Rootsmagic is doing is dropping the shared events on whichever person is selected as the Duplicate Person on the merge, the shared events on the Primary Person appear to remain intact at least in this example.

Download this backup file and you will find Junior DOAKS in the household of his grandparents and sharing their 1920 Family Census event. You will also find Joe DOAKS jnr. in the household of his parents, Joe DOAKS and Mary SMITH and sharing their 1930 Family Census event.

Now merging Joe DOAKS jnr and Junior DOAKS should result in one individual who shares the 1920 census with his grandparents and the 1930 census with his parents but it does not.

In reality the shared event on whichever is selected as the Duplicate Person is dropped in this case and shouldn't be, I have not tested other possibilities of shared events so this problem might also be more widespread.

The question does have to be raised as to what Rootsmagic should do in the case where both these census events were the same date, obviously the person cannot be in both households in the case of a census return but could be sharing other events of the same year.

In the case of a census return of exactly the same date my opinion would be that Rootsmagic should warn that the shared census event on the selected Duplicate Person would be dropped. I say this as maintaining that share would cause other possibly confusing results in the future but it is certainly a topic worthy of further discussion.

Thanks to Don for the file and spotting the problem