"Rejected Matches Initiated By Me" - what's it for?

Question

When I go into the "Rejected Matches Initiated By Me" list, there are half a dozen there.  But I've already rejected them!  In fact, if I try and re-reject them, all I get is the message "these are already rejected".  One of them, for instance, is a match between me and my deceased auntie.  Now, I happen to KNOW we are not the same person ;) and I originally rejected this one back in 2012.  But it's still there.  What do I do with it?  What am I supposed to do with the list? (and, no, I have never uploaded a gedcom)

Comments

I lied.  There aren't a handful.  There are HUNDREDS! and they were all last updated on 20 January 2012.  The 'matches' themselves are mostly wildly out - over a hundred years apart, different continents...and though it says at the top that they are not family members - whoever has done this matching has 'matched' them with my family members.  Or is this list never supposed to be empty, and is a record of what I have done? (in which case, why does it ask me to merge them after every one?)

Please help! I am confused!

---

That text that says "They're not family members" simply means that the list isn't restricted to your watchlist. (But that message bothers me, because some people on my watchlist aren't family, and some of the family members I create matches for are not on my watchlist.)

And I figure that the text that says "If Name-1385 and Name-18 are the same person, merge them or create an unmerged match" is there because computers aren't awfully smart -- and it is easier to get a computer to display the same text on all types of matches than to customize the text. (Also, occasionally we discover that the profiles in a rejected match really represent the some person and deserve to be merged.) Feel free to ignore that text. 

Answer 1

I have many more than a half dozen "rejected matches initiated by me" because I often create rejected matches when I think that two profiles could become confused.

As you note, rejected matches do not require action on your part, so you are perfectly entitled to ignore that list. I assume that the list exists because it would be difficult to create a list of matches and merges without including all types of matches and merges. But you might want to use the list for reference from time to time -- or maybe as "walk through memory lane." (My list is in chronological order, with oldest on top, so it reminds me of my early days at WikiTree.)  :-)

Answer 2

I have only two "rejected matches initiated by me". One is confusable because there were two boys born the same year in the same village with the same name. The other was originally confused with someone in a different country and attached to the wrong parents.

There are, of course, more rejected matches on my watchlist, created by others, but with those initiated by me I want the list to be short and easy to keep an eye on, so I did some housecleaning and removed the rejected matches for people who are not really confusable when you don't just look at name and date of birth but also on date of death, location, parents and spouses.

Comments

Well, that's what I want to do - remove them - how did you do it?  If I try to 'reject' them again, I just get the message that they are already rejected.

---

I don't think you can do it from the watchlist, but if you go to one of the involved profiles, the rejected matches are listed bottom right of the page and there you should fing the option to remove the rejected match.

---

Yes, REMOVE is the option you want.

---

But please don't remove the rejected match if there's a possibility that the two profiles might get confused as being identical when they're not.

---

Exactly.

This is why I want the list to be short and neat, so I can monitor it, even remember what should be there if someone else should remove one of those rejected matches. This is much harder if the list is full of farfetched stuff.