I did not try to delete. I tried to edit last name at birth.

Question

This is very confusing. If two profiles are merged, are they not effectively one? If I edit one I edit both?

I didn't try to delete her, but edit her last name at birth. This returned the redirected message. Now I look in my tree and in fact the proper birth name shows up? Also, I see the two were merged this morning, and I absolutely didn't do this merge this morning, but rather, tried to edit last name at birth.

Thanks

Answer 1

Hi David,

I understand the confusion. When you change a Last Name at Birth, in the background you are creating a merge.

Here's what happens. (If you care. In most cases it shouldn't matter.) When you change an LNAB, a new record is created with the new last name and then the record with the old last name is merged into it. This is unlike other edits because LNABs are used for our WikiTree IDs.

For example, let's say you change Smith-123's LNAB to Jones. It becomes Jones-456, and then Smith-123 is merged into Jones-456.

Chris

Comments

Thanks Chris, I understand, your explanation was great. I should not have been presented with the can't do this update message, but one explaining that the LNAB was changed along with the ID. Thanks again, Dave